No. ^^^    LIDRARY 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/europesmorningafOOrobe 


EUROPE'S 
MORNING  AFTER 


By 

KENNETH  L.  ROBERTS 
// 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


^^^ 


^ 


EuROPEs  Morning  After 


Copyright,  1931,  by  Harper  4  Brothers 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

B-V 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  '*«» 

Foreword v 

I.  Poland  for  Patriotism i 

II.  Husks 63 

III  Handing  It  Back »2i 

IV  For  Over  a  Thousand  Years i74 

V.  Almost  Sunny  Italy 237 

VI.  The  Mysteries  of  Paris 285 

VII.  Merrie  England 33i 

VIII.  SCHIEBER  Land ,    -  3^9 


FOREWORD 

The  material  for  this  book  was  gathered  during 
the  end  of  1919  and  the  eariy  months  of  1920. 
This  period  was  unique  in  the  history  of  Europe. 
Both  the  old  nations  and  the  new  nations  were  just 
beginning  to  sit  up  after  their  four-year  debauch 
of  warfare  and  to  realize  that  they  ought  to  take 
something  for  the  awful  headaches  from  which  they 
were  suffering.  Pessimism  was  rampant.  The  en- 
tire outlook  was  a  rich  dark  brown  in  color.  The 
money  of  the  Central  European  nations  was  tum- 
bling to  new  low  levels  from  day  to  day.  The  dazed 
business  men  of  those  nations  hadn't  learned  how  to 
keep  pace  with  the  falling  exchange.  Each  nation, 
as  it  weakly  took  up  the  burden  of  living  in  the 
morning,  confidently  expected  its  neighbor  nations 
to  expire  miserably  from  anaemia  before  nightfall — ■ 
or  at  least  by  the  following  Friday.  Nobody  knew 
what  was  going  to  happen;  and  those  who  made 
any  predictions  were  usually  wrong.  An  Austrian 
or  a  Pole  or  a  Czech  or  a  Magyar  might  go  to  sleep 
at  eventide  with  the  equivalent  of  eleven  dollars  in 
his  trousers  pocket,  secure  in  the  conviction  that  he 
was  going  to  buy  a  pair  of  shoes  with  his  money 
on  the  following  day;  but  when  he  awoke  to  the 
rosy  flush  of  a  new  dawn,  prices  might  have  doubled, 


FOREWORD 

while  the  value  of  his  money  might  have  slumped 
to  the  equivalent  of  three  dollars  and  nine  cents — • 
or  just  a  little  more  than  enough  to  buy  a  pair  of 
stockings.  Everything,  from  international  bound- 
aries to  domestic  postal  rates,  was  in  a  state  of 
flux.  I  make  this  statement  for  the  benefit  of  the 
people  who,  like  so  many  others  who  have  read  my 
remarks  on  Europe,  may  be  impelled  to  write  to  me 
and  ask  whether  it  would  be  advisable  for  a  man 
with  a  capital  of  one  hundred  and  seventeen  dollars 
and  fifty-four  cents  to  go  to  Vienna  or  Budapest  or 
Warsaw  to  engage  in  the  automobile — or  any  other — ■ 
business.  I  wish  to  answer  these  people  now,  and 
in  the  following  way,  to  wit:  their  guess  is  as  good 
as  anybody's.  The  statements  in  this  book  apply 
only  to  the  months  during  which  they  were  being 
collected.  They  were  accurate  at  that  time.  The 
book  is  not  a  guide  to  conditions  which  exist  to-day 
and  which  will  exist  next  week;  but  it  is  a  record 
of  what  I  believe  to  be  the  lowest  spots  of  Europe's 
morning  after. 

Kenneth  L.  Roberts. 

October  lo,  igso 


EUROPE'S 
MORNING    AFTER 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

IF  patriotism  could  be  capitalized,  the  large,  flat, 
and  rejuvenated  republic  of  Poland  would  have 
so  much  money  that  she  could  afford  to  buy  all  the 
surrounding  countries  which  are  crowding  her  so 
annoyingly,  and  blow  them  up  just  to  provide  fire- 
works and  amusement  for  the  children.  If  patriot- 
ism were  edible,  the  Poles  could  eat  a  square  meal 
every  half  hour,  instead  of  standing  in  line  eight 
hours  for  a  loaf  of  bread  and  then  finding  out,  as 
they  frequently  do,  that  there  isn't  any  bread. 

Poland  holds  the  long-distance  patriotism  cham- 
pionship of  the  world.  Though  there  are  no  text- 
books in  the  Polish  public  schools  explaining  in 
twenty  lessons  how  to  be  patriotic,  the  small  Poles 
acquire  their  patriotism  with  as  much  vigor  and 
thoroughness  as  any  of  the  large  Poles.  It  is  difficult 
to  say  how  this  is  done;  for  the  physical  aspects 
of  Poland  do  not  seem  to  be  such  as  to  inspire  great 
enthusiasm  in  its  residents.  There  is  no  great 
abundance  of  rocks  and  rills;  and  as  for  woods  and 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

templed  hills,  they  are  as  rare  as  electric  fans  on  the 
Muir  Glacier.  Poland  is  a  flat  land.  Enlarge 
a  pancake  many  millions  of  times  and  tint  it  ap- 
propriately, and  one  would  have  a  fair  working 
model  of  Poland.  Its  very  name  proves  it.  Its 
Latin  name,  Polonia,  from  which  the  English 
"Poland"  comes,  means  the  country  of  plains.  It 
is  not  a  beautiful  land.  None  the  less,  the  ac- 
quisition of  patriotism  on  the  part  of  its  inhabitants 
is  accompHshed  with  neatness  and  celerity.  Long 
Poles  and  short  Poles,  thin  Poles  and  thick  Poles, 
soldier  Poles,  musical  Poles,  and  barber  Poles — 
each  and  every  one  of  them  is  so  filled  with  the  fire 
of  patriotism  that  the  pangs  of  hunger  and  cold  and 
disease  and  war  and  nakedness  and  disappointment 
and  grinding  poverty  are  deadened  by  its  genial 
warmth. 

In  America  we  are  somewhat  given  to  mentioning 
a  man's  activities  when  speaking  of  him.  "I'd 
like  to  have  you  meet  George  Jingle,  the  greatest 
ping-pong  player  in  Ossawatomie  County,"  we  say; 
or,  "I  wonder  whether  you  know  my  friend  Will 
Whiffle,  who  effected  the  great  consolidation  in 
doughnut-hole  machinery?"  In  this  way  do  we 
stamp  the  acquaintance  as  desirable.  In  Poland, 
however,  there  is  only  one  qualification  which  is 
worth  advertising.  That  is  patriotism.  "Who  is 
this  guy  Brownski?"  asks  one  Pole.  "Why,"  re- 
plies the  other  Pole,  "he's  a  great  patriot."  That 
settles  the  matter.  He's  a  great  patriot,  and  no- 
body cares  whether  he's  a.  dub  at  golf  or  the  president 
of  the  Nowy  Swiat  Trust  Company  or  a  second-rate 
druggist.     When  you've  said  that  a  man's  a  great 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

patriot  you've  said  it  all,  in  Poland.  You  have,  as 
the  saying  goes,  said  a  mouthful.  Nobody  presses 
the  matter  any  farther.  Nobody  asks  whether  he 
wears  one  ounce  or  twelve  pounds  of  gold  braid  on 
his  uniform.  He's  a  great  patriot.  Fine!  Bring 
him  round  to  dinner ! 

If  I  were  a  futurist  artist  and  were  attempting 
to  produce  a  picture  which  would  represent  Poland 
during  the  first  winter  of  its  new  lease  of  life,  I 
would  give  it  a  background  of  gold  to  represent  its 
patriotism.  I  would  throw  in  a  few  Bolshevik 
beasts  gnawing  at  its  edges  and  at  its  heart,  some 
endless  lines  of  little  children  and  middle-aged  people 
and  old  people  waiting  and  waiting  and  waiting  for 
food,  the  rags  of  poverty,  the  wavy  lines  of  inde- 
cision, the  smoke  of  battle,  a  few  dilapidated  railway 
coaches  bursting  with  people,  the  black  splashes  of 
countless  funerals,  some  dizzying  downward  brush 
strokes  to  represent  the  depreciation  of  its  money, 
scores  of  helping  American  hands  and  a  number  of 
politicians  milling  roimd  in  circles.  Wherever  there 
was  the  smallest  unoccupied  space  I  would  toss  in 
icicles,  Bolsheviks,  white  eagles,  and  food  cards. 
Then  I  would  mount  the  picture  on  a  wheel,  attach 
the  wheel  to  a  dynamo,  and  start  it  to  spinning  at  the 
approximate  rate  of  four  hundred  and  seventy 
revolutions  per  second.  The  effect  would  be  some- 
what messy;  but  that  is  the  effect  of  Poland  on  the 
casual  observer. 

That,  in  fact,  is  the  effect  of  all  central  Europe 
on  everyone.  All  that  one  can  say  about  Central 
Europe  as  a  whole  is  that  it  is  a  mess  and  that  it 
will  probably  be  a  mess  for  some  time  to  come. 

3 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Practically  all  other  statements  are  dangerous  be- 
cause of  the  excellent  chance  that  a  statement  which 
is  true  on  a  given  day  will  probably  be  untrue  on  the 
following  day.  Things,  as  the  political  economists 
frequently  observe  with  a  look  of  great  profundity, 
are  in  a  state  of  flux.  They  are  in  a  state  of  flux 
up  to  their  necks,  not  to  say  up  to  their  ears.  They 
have  large,  unsightly  pieces  of  flux  in  their  hair  and 
eyebrows.  I  would  even  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  they 
were  stuck  in  the  flux  and  were  making  day  and 
night  hideous  with  wild  shrieks  for  some  one  to 
come  along  with  a  pair  of  horses  and  a  shovel  and 
get  them  out.  I  will  also  add  that  their  shrieks  are 
justified,  and  that  some  one  has  got  to  get  them 
out.  My  reasoning  is  based  on  the  fairly  well- 
known  axiom  that  a  man  cannot  lift  himself  by  his 
own  boot  straps.  This  operation  has  frequently 
been  attempted,  but  has  been  universally  unpro- 
ductive. People  who  try  hard  enough  sometimes 
succeed  in  pulling  their  feet  out  from  under  them 
and  falling  down  and  breaking  their  necks.  Then 
somebody  has  to  pay  for  a  funeral. 

Poland  is  in  a  generous  state  of  flux.  Her  bound- 
aries are  particularly  fluxish,  especially  the  bound- 
aries which  face  Russia  and  the  Bolsheviks.  The 
Peace  Conference  has  carefully  refrained  from  de- 
fining these  boundaries;  so  that  nobody  is  able  to 
come  within  three  hundred  miles  of  locating  them 
with  any  accuracy.  They  have  been  left  as  hazy 
and  indistinct  as  a  kerosene  lamp  in  a  London  fog, 
and  offer  remarkably  fine  grounds  for  future  wars. 
The  Peace  Conference  failed  in  many  notable  re- 
spects, but  it  was  a  complete  success  at  providing 

4 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

every  country  in  Central  Europe  with  boundaries 
to  fight  over.  I  might  add  that  there  are  very  few- 
countries  which  will  fail  to  take  advantage  of  the 
opportunities  with  which  the  Peace  Conference  has 
so  generously  provided  them.  That,  at  least,  is  the 
opinion  of  every  American  military  man  and  every 
American  observer  that  I  met  in  Central  Europe — 
and  they  are  the  only  disinterested  and  impartial 
people  to  be  found  in  that  large  and  troubled  stretch 
of  territory.  Everybody  else  has  an  ax  to  grind. 
Some  have  only  one  ax  in  need  of  grinding;  but 
most  of  them  have  as  many  axes  awaiting  the 
sharpener  as  a  stage  magician  has  rolls  of  colored 
paper  which  he  produces  to  mystify  his  audience. 

And  the  United  States  seems  to  have  been  tmani- 
mously  elected  to  the  position  of  official  ax  grinder. 
To  change  the  simile  a  trifle,  if  the  United  States 
joins  with  her  well-known  heartiness  in  the  League 
of  Nations,  which  President  Wilson  insisted  that 
the  United  States  should  enter  without  a  batting  of 
an  eye  or  a  gnashing  of  the  teeth,  or  words  to  that 
effect,  she  will  be  the  energetic  member  who  will  be 
expected  to  remove  the  chestnuts  from  the  fire. 
She  will  have  to  be  the  one  who  will  have  to  endure 
the  curses  of  those  who  are  impatiently  awaiting  the 
chestnuts,  as  well  as  the  one  who  will  have  to  apply 
the  salve  to  the  bums  on  her  fingers. 

The  intensity  with  which  Americans  in  Central 
Europe  mention  the  League  of  Nations  is  truly 
passionate.  They  usually  lead  off  in  the  same  way. 
"When  I  came  over  here,"  says  each  one  of  them, 
"I  was  all  for  the  League  of  Nations,  But  I've 
changed  now;  believe  me,  I've  changed!     Let  them 

5 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

sign  the  Peace  Treaty  as  soon  as  they  can;  but  for 
the  love  of  Mike  don't  let  them  get  mixed  up  with 
the  League  of  Nations,  which  has  no  reservations  in 
it!  If  they  want  to  fight,  and  we  tell  them  not  to 
fight,  do  you  think  they'll  stop?  Not  so  that  you 
could  notice  it!  Help  them,  because  they  need 
help;  but  stay  out  of  the  League  unless  it's  altered!" 
And  so  they  run  on,  from  morning  to  night  and 
through  most  of  the  night  as  well,  whenever  they 
can  find  a  warm  room  in  which  to  sit. 

That,  however,  has  little  to  do  with  Poland. 
Poland's  boundaries  are  in  a  state  of  flux,  and  so  are 
her  politics  and  her  food  supply  and  her  fuel  supply 
and  her  rate  of  exchange.  The  things  which  I  write 
about  Poland  were  as  I  found  them  in  the  month  of 
January,  1920.  They  have  probably  done  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  fluxing  since  that  time.  Prob- 
ably the  rate  of  exchange  is  much  worse,  and  prob- 
ably all  the  political  parties  have  shifted  their 
allegiance  eight  or  ten  or  fifty  times.  Probably 
the  frontier  which  faces  the  Bolsheviki  has  been 
punched  in  or  pushed  out  in  several  places.  Prob- 
ably she  has  less  food  and  fuel.  All  these  things 
are  bound  to  change. 

There  are,  however,  certain  things  about  Poland 
which  will  not  be  affected  by  the  flux.  The  people 
in  most  parts  of  the  country  won't  have  nearly 
enough  to  eat ;  you  may  be  sure  of  that.  The  poor 
people  in  the  cities  will  be  living  on  bad  potatoes 
and  half -rotten  beets  and  inferior  carrots  and  black 
bread  for  which  they  must  stand  in  line  for  hours. 
In  the  districts  which  the  Russian  armies  and  the 
German  armies  devastated  thousands  of  them  will 

6 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

make  their  heartiest  meals  on  grass  and  thistle  soup, 
or  on  bread  made  out  of  pounded  roots  and  vegetables 
and  such-like  truck.  The  Polish  money  will  be 
worth  so  little  and  everything  in  the  stores  will  be  so 
very  expensive  that  the  people  will  be  unable  to  buy 
anything  except  the  barest  necessities  of  life;  while 
business  men  from  other  countries  will  be  buying 
everything  in  sight  because  the  prices  seem  so 
ridiculously  low  to  them. 

None  of  these  things  will  change  in  a  hurry;  and 
above  all  else,  the  patriotism  of  the  Poles  will  remain 
constant.  The  Poles  may  be  inefficient  at  governing 
themselves, — almost  any  people  would  be  if  they 
had  been  at  it  for  as  short  a  time  as  the  Poles; 
they  may  be  lazy  and  averse  to  settling  down  to 
work;  they  may  squabble  among  themselves  over 
political  matters;  they  may  be  regarded  by  their 
neighbors  as  hopelessly  incompetent  to  govern  them- 
selves. In  spite  of  all  this  they  will  continue  to 
rank  high  among  the  world's  patriots ;  and  patriotism 
in  sufficient  quantities  has  more  than  once  been 
known  to  pull  nations  out  of  deeper  holes  than  the 
one  which  Poland  now  occupies. 

Poland,  as  one  is  quite  unable  to  discover  from 
most  of  the  maps  which  purport  to  represent  the 
new  nations  of  Europe  according  to  the  Peace 
Treaty,  is  a  large  chunk  of  territory  which  starts 
modestly  at  the  Baltic  Sea,  bulges  mildly  into  Ger- 
many in  the  west  and  violently  into  Russia  on  the 
east,  and  rubs  against  Czechoslovakia  and  Rumania 
on  the  south.  According  to  the  maps  it  is  a  rather 
symmetrical  cup-shaped  country;  but,  due  to  the 
praiseworthy  and  ferocious  attacks  of  the  Polish 

7 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

army  on  the  Bolsheviks,  the  Russian  side  of  the  cup 
has  developed  a  massive  wen  which  makes  Poland 
twice  as  large  as  the  map  makers  conceived  it  to  be 
when  they  drew  the  post-war  maps. 

The  German  side  of  the  cup  sticks  into  Germany 
in  a  manner  which  is  highly  irritating  to  the  Ger- 
mans; for  a  Polish  army  could  leap  over  to  Berlin 
in  about  two  shakes  of  a  lamb's  tail.  The  distance 
from  the  Polish  frontier  to  Berlin  is  only  one  third 
the  distance  from  Berlin  to  the  Rhine.  Since  Ger- 
many is  contemplating  another  intensive  war  with 
France  in  the  not-distant  future,  the  imminence  of 
the  Polish  frontier  is,  to  put  it  conservatively,  ex- 
tremely distasteful  to  her.  She  is  not  particularly 
enthusiastic  about  Poland.  In  the  argot  of  the  day, 
Germany  hopes  that  Poland  will  choke.  She  not 
only  hopes  that  Poland  will  choke,  but  she  is  willing 
to  do  anything  in  her  power  to  assist  the  choking. 
Though  she  is  fearful  of  Bolshevism  within  her  own 
gates,  she  is  very  much  in  favor  of  external  Bolshe- 
vism, provided  it  be  directed  against  Poland.  Some 
people  may  consider  that  these  are  idle  ravings, 
similar  to  the  disordered  visions  produced  by  the 
potent  hashish,  or  Indian  hemp.  Such,  however, 
is  not  the  case.  The  German  War  Office  sent  out 
instructions  to  former  members  of  the  German 
army,  informing  them  that  the  Bolshevik  army  would 
pay  each  former  German  soldier  thirty-five  marks 
a  day  to  fight  with  the  Bolsheviks,  and  give  each 
man  a  bonus  of  five  thousand  marks  at  the  end  of 
three  months'  service,  A  Bolshevik  general  ap- 
peared in  Berlin  with  his  adjutant  late  in  19 19  to 
thank  one  of  the  highest  officials  of  the  German 

8 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

government  for  the  many  officers  which  the  Germans 
had  sent,  by  agreement,  to  fight  vt^'ith  the  Bolsheviks. 
The  Bolsheviks  have  a  powerful  and  venomous 
hatred  for  France.  This  hatred  has  been  carefully 
nurtured  by  German  propagandists;  for  the  Ger- 
mans are  already  planning  to  have  the  assistance 
of  Russia  in  the  next  war  with  France.  These  plans 
call  for  the  elimination  of  Poland.  In  the  city  of 
Kovno,  away  up  on  the  outer  edge  of  the  northern 
corner  of  Poland,  there  is  a  German  propaganda 
bureau  whose  entire  activities  are  devoted  to  sending 
out  anti-Polish  propaganda.  Most  of  the  pogrom 
stories  come  from  the  Kovno  bureau,  being  sent 
from  there  to  Scandinavia  and  from  Scandinavia  to 
America.  Germany  maintains  a  complete  intelli- 
gence organization  in  Poland. 

No,  Germany  does  not  regard  Poland  with  deep 
affection.  Her  fondest  hope  is  that  the  Bolsheviks 
will  batter  the  Polish  army  to  pieces — a  task  for 
which  the  Bolsheviks  have  so  far  shown  little  aptitude 
— ^and  leave  the  country  lying  limp  and  fainting  in 
the  dust.  When  this  occurs,  she  proposes  to  come 
into  Poland,  administer  a  few  well-directed  kicks  to 
the  Bolsheviks,  pick  Poland  up,  brush  the  dirt  from 
her,  hold  the  smelling  salts  under  her  nose  and  start 
her  going  again,  attached  to  the  German  pay  roll. 
All  of  Poland's  neighbors  declare  loudly  and  em- 
phatically that  Poland  cannot  continue  to  exist  as 
an  independent  state  for  any  length  of  time.  They 
say  she  is  so  inefficient  and  impractical  that  she 
doesn't  know  enough  to  raise  an  umbrella  during  a 
cloud-burst.  Germany  is  the  loudest  talker  along 
these  lines.     The  Germans  are  sufficiently  practical 

9 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

and  efficient ;  but  it  is  quite  impossible  to  see  where 
some  of  the  others  have  any  special  license  to  twit 
Poland  about  inefficiency  and  impracticality.  If 
Poland  is  due  for  a  fall  merely  because  she  is  in- 
efficient and  impractical,  all  of  Central  Europe  will 
be  echoing  with  the  thuds  of  falling  countries  for  the 
next  few  years. 

Warsaw,  the  capital  of  Poland,  was  an  easy  place 
to  reach  from  any  part  of  Europe  before  the  war. 
It  was  a  day-and-a-half  journey  from  almost  all  the 
European  capitals.  One  could  go  in  from  Paris 
or  across  from  London  or  down  from  St.  Petersburg 
or  over  from  Bucharest  or  up  from  Rome  in  about 
thirty-six  hours.  At  the  present  day  one  has  a 
better  chance  of  making  the  trip  in  thirty-six  days 
than  he  does  of  making  it  in  thirty-six  hours.  I 
went  into  Warsaw  from  Berlin — a  trip  which  took 
eleven  hours  before  the  war.  It  took  me  thirty- 
three  hours;  and  it  would  have  taken  me  forty  if  I 
hadn't  thrown  my  baggage  out  of  the  window  of  the 
so-called  express  train  in  which  I  was  traveling — ^but 
which  was  temporarily  incapacitated  because  the 
bottom  had  fallen  out  of  the  engine,  squeezed  into  a 
freight  car  attached  to  a  switching  engine — and  trans- 
ferred from  that  into  a  crowded  local  train  which 
appeared  to  be  going  in  the  right  direction. 

In  America  we  are  inclined  to  speak  of  a  train 
as  crowded  when  a  few  people  have  to  stand  up  in 
the  aisles.  In  Central  Europe  a  train  which  has  a 
few  people  standing  in  the  aisles  is  regarded  as  prac- 
tically empty.  There  are  a  few  trains  de  luxe, 
operated  by  the  Interallied  Military  Authorities, 
which  carry  only  as  many  people  as  can  find  seats. 

lO 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

But  99  per  cent  of  the  trains  are  so  crammed  with 
patient,  stolid,  foul-smelling,  sick,  and  suffering 
humanity  that  the  windows  are  crushed  out  and  the 
very  woodwork  splintered. 

That  sounds  somewhat  exaggerated,  but  it  isn't. 
I  examined  train  after  train  at  various  spots  between 
Warsaw  and  the  German  frontier,  to  say  nothing  of 
riding  in  a  few  of  them,  and  I  have  no  hesitation 
whatever  in  lifting  up  my  right  hand  and  taking 
oath  that  each  and  every  one  of  them  was  crowded 
to  the  extreme  and  uttermost  limit.  Compartments 
which  were  constructed  to  hold  eight  people  would 
be  crammed  with  eighteen,  twenty,  and  sometimes 
more  than  twenty  people.  In  some  of  the  cars  the 
windows  were  simply  broken  out.  In  others  they 
were  replaced  with  wooden  boards,  so  that  the 
darkness  inside  the  cars  was  made  more  awful  by  the 
lack  of  ventilation.  The  people  who  were  squeezed 
into  these  trains  were  traveling  out  into  the  country 
in  search  of  food,  or  traveling  back  to  the  homes  from 
which  they  had  been  driven  by  the  Russian  or  the 
German  army,  or  traveling  in  search  of  a  place 
where  they  might  rest  their  weary  heads — for  the 
larger  cities  of  Poland  are  filled  to  overflowing  with 
refugees  who  are  coming  out  of  Russia.  Persons 
who  ride  for  half  an  hour  each  day  in  crowded  subway 
or  surface  cars  in  America  are  forced  to  endure  a 
most  unpleasant  experience;  but  not  even  they  can 
grasp  the  horrors  of  travel  in  Poland,  where  one 
cannot  ride  in  a  train  without  being  jammed  im- 
movably into  a  tiny  compartment  for  hours  on  end, 
and  where  no  train  reaches  its  destination  without 
at  least  one  typhus  victim  being  removed  from  it. 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

One  catches  typhus  only  after  being  bitten  by  the 
typhus  louse,  and  the  typhus  louse  can  bite  without 
leaving  any  trace;  and  since  American  medical 
officers  in  Poland  have  found  that  practically  all  of 
the  poorer  people  of  Poland  are  plentifully  supplied 
with  lice,  one  cannot  endure  the  enforced  intimacy 
of  a  Polish  railway  journey  without  enjoying  the 
anticipation  of  catching  a  nice  case  of  typhus.  This 
helps  to  a  certain  extent  to  distract  the  mind  from 
the  physical  discomforts  of  the  trip;  but  the  dis- 
traction is  not  overpoweringly  delightful.  It  is  not 
a  distraction  which  one  would  pay  large  amounts  of 
money  to  obtain;  in  fact,  a  speculator  dealing  in 
tickets  for  that  sort  of  distraction  would  probably 
be  out  of  luck  even  in  New  York,  where  the  populace 
appears  to  be  almost  unanimous  in  its  anxiety  to 
force  its  money  on  ticket  speculators  of  all  sorts. 

The  transportation  problem  is  Poland's  worst 
problem,  and  she  has  many  serious  ones.  Germany's 
greatest  problem  is  raw  materials;  Czechoslovakia's 
greatest  problem  is  politics;  the  greatest  problem 
of  fehe  remainder  of  Central  Europe — except  Austria 
— is  the  lack  of  coal;  and  every  problem  is  Austria's 
greatest  problem;  but  if  Poland  could  have  the 
proper  transportation  facilities  she  could  probably 
overcome  all  her  other  troubles.  She  could  probably 
get  food  and  distribute  it;  she  could  probably 
scratch  up  a  fair  supply  of  raw  materials  from  her 
own  tremendous  and  undeveloped  stores;  she  could 
probably  squelch  her  rambunctious  politicians;  she 
could  probably  attend  handily  to  the  Bolsheviks 
and  watch  the  Germans  at  the  same  time ;  she  could 
probably  manufacture  enough  goods  and  export  a 

12 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

sufficient  amount  of  them  and  of  wood  and  of  raw 
materials  to  bring  the  value  of  her  money  to  a  point 
where  her  people  could  begin  to  live  again  rather 
than  merely  exist.  She  has  enough  coal  of  her  own 
to  take  care  of  her  own  needs,  but  her  transportation 
system  is  limping  so  badly  that  she  can't  get  it 
round  to  the  places  that  need  it. 

Poland  is  fortunate  in  having  several  advisers  and 
helpers,  many  of  them  sent  in  by  the  American 
who  has  the  respect  and  the  admiration  of  every 
nation  in  Europe  and  every  American  in  Europe — 
Herbert  Hoover. 

In  almost  any  Central  European  city  one  is  apt  to 
find  photographs  of  Hoover  staring  somewhat  frown- 
ingly  at  him  from  shop  windows.  Whenever  Amer- 
icans meet  in  Central  Europe  they  invariably  agree 
that  there  is  only  one  man  in  America  who  has  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  the  horrifying  and  dazing 
mess  into  which  Europe  has  fallen,  and  that  Hoover 
is  the  man.  The  new  Prime  Minister  of  Poland 
stared  out  of  the  windows  of  the  former  Russian 
governor-general's  palace  and  informed  me  in  a  cold 
and  level  voice  that  there  wasn't  a  child  in  Poland 
to-day  who  would  ever  forget  the  name  of  Herbert 
Hoover.  He  also  stated  unemotionally  that  the 
people  of  Poland  will  establish  an  institution  which 
shall  perpetuate  Hoover's  name  forever. 

Hoover's  people  are  feeding  the  children  of  Central 
Europe;  Hoover's  people  are  advising  the  govern- 
ments of  Central  Europe.  Central  Europe  has 
learned  from  them,  as  well  as  from  the  American 
Red  Cross  and  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.,  that  Americans  keep 
their  promises  and  that  they  are  in  Central  Europe 

13 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

for  no  ulterior  motives.  Other  nations  come  into  Cen- 
tral Europe  and  play  politics  of  the  dirtiest  sort; 
they  come  in  and  spread  the  propaganda  of  hate  for 
other  nations;  they  come  in  and  sanction  the  ex- 
ploitation of  the  different  nations  by  permitting 
contraband  goods  to  be  shipped  in  and  out  as  military 
stores;  they  come  in  like  buzzards  to  prey  on  the 
dying  bodies  politic  in  Central  Europe.  And  as  they 
prey  they  lift  up  their  voices  and  scream  that  America 
must  do  this  and  that;  that  America  must  do  thus 
and  so;  that  America  has  made  all  the  money  in 
the  world  and  that  she  must  therefore  supply  all  the 
help ;  that  America  must  be  the  cosmic  goat  and  the 
international  sucker.  The  Swedes  and  the  Danes 
and  the  Dutch  and  the  English  and  the  French  and 
the  Italians  pour  into  Central  Europe,  where  the 
money  is  scarcely  worth  the  paper  it  is  printed  on, 
and  they  buy  machinery  and  tools  and  antiques  and 
jewels  and  works  of  art  and  industries  and  furs  at 
prices  less  than  a  quarter  of  what  they  were  in  pre- 
war days ;  and  the  value  of  money  in  Central  Europe 
goes  tumbling  down  into  a  bottomless  pit.  America 
helps  the  suffering  countries  with  food  and  loans 
and  advisers;  and  the  buzzard  nations  on  the  edge 
continue  to  strip  them  of  their  goods  and  to  shout 
that  America  has  all  the  money  in  the  world  and 
that  she  alone  can  help.  Poland  needs  all  the  help 
that  she  is  getting  from  America,  and  more.  Austria 
is  getting  some  American  aid,  but  not  nearly  enough. 
Some  of  the  other  nations  of  Central  Europe  need  a 
certain  amount  of  American  help.  All  the  Ameri- 
cans in  Europe  agree  on  that.  But  Americans  in 
Europe  also  agree  that  there  are  times  when  it  gives 

14 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

them  a  long,  lingering  pain  to  think  that  America 
is  about  the  only  nation  which  does  things  for 
nothing. 

But  let  us  get  back  to  that  journey  into  Warsaw 
from  Berlin.  That  is  where  one  first  gets  a  glimpse 
of  the  transportation  difficulties  with  which  Poland 
is  saddled.  One  runs  bumpily  along  the  boundless 
plains,  and  then  the  train  hesitates,  coughs,  and 
stops.  A  car  has  broken  down.  It  is  repaired  with 
wire  or  an  old  rope,  and  the  train  proceeds  again. 
Once  more  it  coughs  and  stops.  It  has  run  out  of 
coal  and  the  fireman  must  cut  down  a  few  trees  for 
fuel.  It  proceeds  eventually,  only  to  stop  for  the 
third  time.  This  time  the  bottom  has  fallen  out  of 
the  engine.  A  new  engine  is  procured  after  an 
interminable  delay.  Sometimes,  on  the  fourth 
attempt  to  go  forward,  everything  breaks  down  at 
the  same  time  and  an  entire  new  train  has  to  be 
summoned. 

In  all  of  Central  Europe  40  per  cent  of  the  locomo- 
tives are  suffering  from  such  advanced  cases  of 
nervous  debility  that  they  are  useless.  Of  the  large, 
heavy  locomotives  a  much  larger  percentage  is  out 
of  business,  so  that  most  of  the  work  is  done  by 
small  near-locomotives  which  look  as  if  they  had 
been  constructed  from  tin  biscuit  boxes  and  a  few 
old  spoons,  and  which  make  about  as  much  noise  in 
passing  as  would  be  made  by  a  small  boy  with  a 
penny  whistle.  Colonel  Barber  and  Major  Ryan, 
two  American  army  officers,  are  helping  the  Polish 
Minister  of  Railways  to  establish  order  so  far  as  it 
is  possible,  and  are  working  day  and  night  at  the 
task.    As  things  stand  at  present  the  Poles  are 

IS 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

barely  moving  their  coal  and  their  food ;  and  in  order 
to  do  this  the  entire  nation  is  making  great  sacri- 
fices. Passenger  traffic  has  been  cut  to  the  lowest 
possible  point,  and  no  luxury  articles  are  allowed 
to  be  shipped  into  the  country.  The  only  things 
in  Poland  which  travel  in  any  comfort  are  the  lice, 
and  even  they  probably  complain  of  their  lot  among 
themselves. 

It  is  also  on  the  journey  from  Berlin  to  Warsaw 
that  one  gets  an  idea  of  the  peculiar  and  messy 
manner  in  which  Poland  is  divided.  It  is  divided 
into  three  parts  in  two  different  ways.  This  sounds 
about  as  clear  as  Poland  looks  to  a  newcomer. 
Close  observers  state  that  one  is  quite  incapable  of 
grasping  the  PoHsh  situation  until  he  has  been  there 
at  least  six  months,  and  that  persons  who  have  been 
there  for  six  months  or  over  realize  that  they  know 
less  about  Poland  than  they  knew  when  they  had 
been  there  only  two  weeks.  None  the  less,  Poland 
is  divided  into  three  parts  in  two  different  ways. 
It  is  divided  politically  into  Posnania,  Congress 
Poland,  and  the  Military  Area.  And  it  is  divided 
by  pre-war  ownership  into  Russian  Poland,  Austrian 
Poland,  and  German  Poland.  In  parts  of  Russian 
Poland  the  Russian  ruble  is  the  only  money  that  is 
used.  In  parts  of  Austrian  Poland  the  Austrian 
crown  is  the  only  money  that  looks  like  the  real 
thing  to  the  natives.  In  Austrian  Poland  the  people 
had  an  idea  that  a  crown  is  as  good  as  a  mark.  The 
Polish  government  didn't  think  so,  and  issued  an 
order  that  one  hundred  crowns  were  equal  to  only 
seventy  marks.  The  residents  of  Austrian  Poland 
promptly  became  frantic  with  rage. 

i6 


POLAND  FOR   PATRIOTISM 

The  little  differences  which  rise  between  Austrian, 
German,  and  Russian  Poland,  however,  are  small 
and  easily  straightened  out,  and  if  it  comes  to  a 
question  of  repelling  a  common  enemy  they  will  all 
be  Poles  together. 

The  political  division  is  a  bit  more  confusing. 
Posnania  is  that  section  of  Poland  whose  center  is 
the  city  of  Posen.  It  formerly  belonged  to  Ger- 
many ;  and  for  months  after  the  armistice  the  Poles 
and  the  Germans  were  greatly  given  to  guerrilla 
warfare  along  the  new  border.  That  section  of  the 
country,  having  been  run  by  the  Germans,  was 
better  systematized  and  better  cultivated  than  the 
rest  of  Poland,  and  food  was  more  plentiful  and 
cheaper.  The  Poles  in  Congress  Poland  say  that 
Posnania  is  the  cheapest  place  in  the  world  in  which 
to  live  just  now;  and  I  have  no  reason  to  disbelieve 
them.  I  traveled  through  Posen  with  a  Dutch 
courier ;  and  the  two  of  us  went  to  the  best  restaurant 
in  Posen  to  try  out  the  Posen  food  prices.  We  dis- 
played the  utmost  recklessness  and  prodigality  in 
ordering,  and  succeeded  in  getting  a  thick  venison 
soup,  a  quart  bottle  of  a  fine  white  wine — Rotenberg, 
1907,  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  think  that  fine 
white  wines  no  longer  exist — two  large  orders  of 
turkey,  a  sallow  variety  of  bread,  a  generous  order  of 
butter,  sweet  cakes,  coffee,  and  two  glasses  of  cognac. 
The  total  reckoning  was  fifty-six  Polish  marks. 
Since  a  Berlin  bank  had  stung  me  severely  on  the 
preceding  day  by  allowing  me  only  one  hundred 
Polish  marks  for  a  dollar  when  the  official  rate  was 
really  one  hundred  and  twenty  marks  for  a  dollar,  I 
am  forced  to  compute  the  cost  of  that  dinner  at 

17 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

fifty-six  cents  from  an  American  standpoint.  In 
Congress  Poland  the  same  dinner  would  have  cost 
three  times  as  much. 

Since  things  are  cheaper  in  Posnania  than  in 
Congress  Poland,  the  Posnanian  officials  must  guard 
against  the  people  who  wish  to  buy  there  and  take 
goods  into  other  parts  of  Poland  to  resell  at  a  profit. 
This  gives  rise  to  the  peculiar  situation  of  one  part 
of  a  nation  maintaining  customs  officials  to  prevent 
smuggling  into  other  parts  of  the  same  nation. 
After  one  has  passed  the  customs  officials  at  the 
German-Polish  frontier  one  runs  up  against  another 
set  of  officials  at  the  Posnanian-Congress  Poland 
border;  and  the  latter  are  even  more  thorough  in 
their  search  than  the  former.  They  herd  passengers 
out  of  the  through  train  at  two  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, line  them  up  with  their  hands  over  their  heads, 
and  frisk  them  with  the  utmost  vigor.  They  take 
loaves  of  bread  from  the  travelers,  break  them  open 
and  wriggle  their  fingers  round  in  the  interiors  of  the 
loaves.  They  open  bottles  of  wine  belonging  to  the 
voyagers  and  take  generous  swigs  from  the  bottles. 
They  whack  the  travelers  on  the  head  in  order  to 
see  whether  anything  is  concealed  in  their  hats. 
They  even  make  them  remove  their  boots.  They 
don't  do  these  things  to  Americans  or  British  or 
French;  but  the  ordinary  traveler  is  treated  with 
about  as  much  consideration  as  though  he  were  trying 
to  escape  with  all  the  treasures  of  the  Polish  Church. 

Posnania  has  a  government  all  its  own,  and  pre- 
sents all  the  appearance  of  a  separate  state,  working 
in  many  instances  at  variance  with  the  central 
government  at  Warsaw. 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

Prussians  snort  contemptuously  at  the  situation 
and  declare  that  a  government  that  is  not  strong 
enough  to  unite  its  different  parts  is  bound  to  fall. 
Polish  officials,  however,  are  not  at  all  alarmed. 
They  say  that  Posnania  has  a  right  to  protect  herself 
against  high  prices  elsewhere,  and  that  there  is  no 
other  reason  for  the  separate  customs  officials  and 
the  separate  government.  I  prefer  to  believe  the 
Polish  officials  rather  than  the  Prussian  snorters; 
for  the  past  five  years  have  demonstrated  conclu- 
sively that  when  a  Prussian  sizes  up  a  situation  he  is 
usually  wrong.  He  always  knows  what  he  is  going 
to  do  himself,  but  he  only  thinks  that  he  knows 
what  the  other  fellow  is  going  to  do.  So  the  Prussian 
knows  that  he  is  doing  his  best  to  wreck  Poland; 
but  there's  a  very  good  chance  that  he's  wrong 
when  he  thinks  that  Poland  will  collapse  by  the 
end  of  1920. 

Congress  Poland  is  made  up  of  the  bulk  of  Poland 
as  it  appears  on  all  the  post-war  maps.  That  section 
of  the  country  is  run  by  the  President  of  the  Council 
of  Ministers,  by  the  Ministers,  and  by  the  Diet, 
which  corresponds  to  our  Congress.  East  of  Con- 
gress Poland  is  the  Military  Area,  acquired  by  the 
Polish  army  because  of  its  facility  in  chasing  the 
Bolshevik  armies  to  the  uttermost  confines  of  the 
landscape.  The  Military  Area  is  larger  than  Con- 
gress Poland  and  Posnania  together,  and  is  governed 
entirely  by  the  army;  and  whenever  the  army  says 
anything,  it  goes.  The  great  bulk  of  the  Poles 
are  emphatically  in  favor  of  having  the  army  run 
everything.  They  want  a  military  dictatorship  for 
the  country.    They  are  very,  very  weary  of  politi- 

19 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

cians  and  of  political  parties  which  change  their 
allegiance,  their  political  platforms,  their  minds,  and 
their  names  every  Tuesday  afternoon.  They  are 
sick  of  patriotic  but  unskilled  politicians  who  don't 
know  what  to  do  until  they  have  held  a  meeting  to 
decide,  and  who,  when  they  have  decided  what  to  do, 
haven't  the  slightest  idea  how  to  do  it. 

Politicians  are  pretty  much  the  same  all  over  the 
world ;  but  in  the  new  states  of  Central  Europe  they 
are  even  more  so.  For  the  most  part  they  are  men 
who  have  been  yanked  out  of  harness  shops  or  drug 
stores  or  schoolhouses  or  little  provincial  news- 
paper offices,  and  who  know  about  as  much  con- 
cerning the  running  of  a  nation  as  they  do  about  the 
nebular  hypothesis  or  the  theogony  of  angiosperms. 
They  are  woefully  incapable  and  inefficient — far 
more  so  than  the  same  sort  of  people  would  be  in 
America;  for  in  Central  Europe  this  class  of  person 
has  been  politically  sat  on  for  centuries;  whereas 
in  America  the  habitues  of  every  country  post  office 
and  every  country  store  feel  themselves  thoroughly 
competent — and  frequently  are  thoroughly  compe- 
tent— to  point  out  to  the  heads  of  the  nation  the 
horrible  mistakes  that  they  are  making. 

The  army  is  everywhere  in  Poland.  The  war 
isn't  over  for  Central  Europe,  and  it  won't  be  over 
for  many  a  long  year  to  come.  There  are  soldiers 
at  every  station,  soldiers  in  every  hotel,  soldiers  on 
every  street.  Poland,  which  last  winter  was  the 
world's  rampart  against  the  Bolshevik  armies,  had 
nearly  one  million  men  under  arms,  and  was  holding 
five  hundred  miles  of  front  against  the  Bolshevik 
armies.     She  was  also  keeping  careful  watch  on  the 

20 


POLAND  FOR   PATRIOTISM 

Germans,  who  are  waiting  to  slip  a  knife  into  her; 
and  on  the  Czechoslovaks,  who  have  been  making 
things  uncomfortable  for  Poland  down  round  the 
Teschen  coal  fields — which,  as  one  looks  at  a  map, 
are  down  at  the  lower  left-hand  corner  of  Poland, 
where  she  and  Germany  and  Czechoslovakia  meet. 

All  the  nations  of  Central  Europe  are  constantly 
making  things  unpleasant  for  one  another.  The 
Peace  Conference  made  a  complete  and  total  mess 
of  Central  Europe,  and  each  individual  mess  is  pro- 
ducing as  many  minor  messes  as  it  can.  Every 
American  in  Central  Europe  is  anxious  to  get  that 
message  back  to  the  United  States — that  Central 
Europe  is  nothing  but  a  bundle  of  hopelessly  en- 
tangled hatreds  and  discords;  that  it  is  a  mass  of 
selfishness  and  distrust  and  deceit  and  dirty  politics; 
that  it  is  a  place  from  which  the  United  States  must 
stay  away  politically.  Help  Central  Europe,  but 
stay  away  from  anything  that  will  tie  us  up  with  it. 
Nothing  that  we  can  do  will  help  to  stifle  or  to 
soothe  or  to  eradicate  the  bitter  hates  which  have 
existed  between  the  peoples  of  Central  Europe  for  so 
many  centuries. 

Poland,  as  I  see  it,  is  the  most  deserving  of  our 
help  of  all  the  Central  European  nations,  and  Austria 
is  the  neediest.  Poland  is  fighting  the  battle  against 
the  Bolsheviks — or  was  fighting  it  last  winter  in 
the  face  of  almost  insurmountable  difficulties.  Her 
armies  and  her  people  were  hungry  and  bitterly  cold 
and  wretchedly  clad  and  enduring  unbelievable 
hardships.  Instead  of  being  assisted  in  every  way 
by  the  Supreme  Council  in  Paris,  the  Polish  army 
was  ordered  again  and  again  by  the  Supreme  Council 

21 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

to  stop  advancing  when  victories  were  within  its 
grasp.  Poland  alone,  of  all  the  Central  European 
states,  has  obeyed  the  orders  of  the  Allies.  Ru- 
mania gave  the  Allies  the  cold  metallic  laugh; 
Germany  ignored  their  commands  and  continued  to 
do  as  she  pleased  on  the  Baltic;  the  Hungarian 
Bolshevik  army  went  up  and  tried  to  chew  a  piece 
out  of  Slovakia;  the  Ukrainians  violated  an  ar- 
mistice and  attacked  the  Poles;  and  the  Jugoslavs 
have  been  indulging  in  minor  wars  from  time  to  time. 
Austria  has  done  nothing  because  she  has  nothing 
with  which  to  do  anything;  but  all  the  others,  with 
the  exception  of  Poland,  have  been  doing  as  they 
pleased  and  are  making  great  preparations  to  do 
as  they  please  some  more,  despite  any  commands 
which  the  Allies  may  issue  to  the  contrary.  Poland 
has  behaved  herself;  Poland  has  fought  a  good  fight; 
Poland  is  doing  her  utmost  to  live  as  she  should  live 
in  the  days  of  misery  and  poverty  and  cold  and 
hunger.  And  because  of  all  these  things  I  repeat 
that  Poland  deserves  our  help  more  than  any  of  the 
other  nations — though  Austria's  plight  is  more  pitiful. 
As  one  comes  into  Warsaw  from  Berlin  one  sees 
soldiers  everywhere — soldiers  in  the  steel-blue  Polish 
uniform  and  the  four-cornered  caps  with  the  white 
eagle  of  Poland  on  the  front ;  or  in  olive-drab  Ameri- 
can uniforms.  Some  of  these  olive-drab  uniforms 
still  bear  American  army  buttons.  Some  are  still 
decorated  with  gold  service  chevrons.  I  watched 
a  detachment  swinging  along  the  streets  of  Warsaw 
one  day,  and  every  man  wore  an  American  uniform 
and  carried  an  American  haversack  with  the  letters 
U.  S.  stenciled  on  it.     There  was  nothing  to  dis- 

22 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

tinguish  them  from  American  doughboys  except  their 
four-cornered  caps  and  their  Kosciuszko  burnsides. 
They  were  a  credit  to  the  uniform,  too,  for  they  were 
fine-looking  boys — and  any  Bolshevik  can  tell  you 
that  they  are  fine  fighters  as  well.  They  fought 
through  the  early  part  of  last  winter,  in  the  biting 
cold  of  western  Russia,  without  overcoats,  and  in 
many  cases  with  so  little  clothing  that  when  the  men 
came  back  from  the  front  lines  they  would  go  to  the 
dugouts  in  the  rear  and  take  off  their  shoes  and  their 
breeches  and  give  them  to  the  half-naked  men  who 
were  to  relieve  them.  And  then  they  would  lie 
there  in  the  dugouts  until  their  breeches  and  their 
shoes  came  back  to  them,  and  then  they  would 
put  them  on  and  go  forward  and  fight  once  more. 
In  the  hotel  lobbies  one  encounters  Polish  officers 
who  could  be  placed  bodily  on  the  operatic  stage 
or  among  the  pages  of  that  sort  of  novel  in  which  the 
hero  overturns  a  kingdom  in  order  to  marry  the 
beautiful  princess  who  was  educated  in  America. 
They  wear  sabers  at  least  five  feet  long,  and  the 
sabers  dangle  about  a  foot  above  the  floor  and 
bang  against  their  beautifully  polished  riding  boots. 
As  they  stride  up  and  down,  the  sabers  occasionally 
swing  round  between  their  legs,  but  instead  of  falling 
down  the  officers  merely  give  a  dexterous  kick  with 
their  right  heels,  and  kick  the  sabers  out  from  be- 
tween their  legs  so  that  they  whirl  round  in  a  very 
dangerous  manner.  They  let  their  hair  grow  down 
in  front  of  their  ears  just  the  way  Kosciuszko  used 
to ;  and  by  so  doing  I  think  they  have  acquired  some 
of  the  fire  and  the  enthusiasm  and  the  patriotism 
of  that  brave  and  patriotic  soldier.     Whenever  they 

23 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

meet  acquaintances  they  snap  their  heels  together 
with  a  noise  similar  to  the  dropping  of  a  pie  plate 
on  a  marble  floor,  and  bow  from  the  hips.  And  on 
meeting  a  lady  of  their  acquaintance  they  seize  her 
hand  and  kiss  it  passionately.  When  an  officer 
enters  a  restaurant  in  which  other  officers  are 
seated  he  stops  before  every  officer  and  bows  from  his 
hips,  whereat  the  officer  to  whom  he  bows,  dropping 
his  knife  and  fork,  half  rises  to  his  feet  and  bows 
from  his  hips  in  turn.  It  is  all  very  impressive  and 
splendid.  When  one  dines  with  a  Polish  officer  the 
officer  devotes  half  his  time  to  rising  and  bowing 
to  brother  officers.  It  is  a  pretty  spectacle,  but  it 
cuts  into  the  conversation  severely. 

Possibly  that  is  why  the  wealthy  Poles  devote  so 
much  time  to  eating.  Or  rather,  possibly  that  is  why 
they  devoted  so  much  time  to  eating  up  to  the 
middle  of  last  January,  when  the  new  food  regulations 
went  into  effect. 

There  was  scarcely  a  soul  in  the  Warsaw  restaurants 
until  nine  o'clock  at  night ;  but  at  nine  o'clock  every 
restaurant  filled  up  and  the  occupants  ate,  bowed  to 
one  another,  and  kissed  hands  until  midnight.  And 
at  eating,  the  Polish  officers  and  the  wealthy  citizens 
are  almost  without  peers.  It  may  be  that  a  hearty 
Russian  eater  can  outeat  a  Pole,  but  I  doubt  it. 

In  every  good  Warsaw  restaurant  there  is — or 
was  until  last  January — a  long  table  covered  with  a 
large  assortment  of  cold  meats,  jellied  what  nots, 
salads,  small  cold  fishes,  both  raw  and  cooked,  and  all 
sorts  of  appetizers.  There  might  be  an  entire  tur- 
key, which  would  prove  to  be  goose-liver  paste 
molded  into  the  shape  of  a  turkey.     It  was  always 

24 


POLAND  FOR   PATRIOTISM 

a  tempting  layout.  On  entering  a  restaurant  a 
Pole  would  betake  himself  to  the  long  table,  secure 
a  plate  from  a  waiter,  and  range  up  and  down  the 
table,  transferring  one  or  more  samples  of  e very- 
appetizer  to  his  plate.  When  his  plate  weighed 
about  four  pounds  he  would  get  a  small  glass  of 
slivervitz,  which  is  a  potent  Polish  beverage  distilled 
from  the  old  familiar  prune,  find  himself  a  chair, 
toss  his  slivervitz  down  his  throat,  and  eat  up  his 
four  pounds  of  appetizers,  pausing  ever  and  anon 
to  rise  and  bow  to  a  passing  officer. 

The  appetizers  alone  would  be  enough  to  provide 
a  full  meal  for  almost  any  American.  But  for  a 
Pole  it  was  the  merest  snack.  It  served  only  to 
put  an  edge  on  his  appetite.  Evidently  the  restau- 
rants had  slight  regard  for  its  value  as  a  food;  for 
nobody  ever  kept  count  of  the  amount  of  appetizers 
which  each  visitor  took.  The  cost  was  the  same, 
whether  one  took  a  small  cold  fish  or  carted  away 
seven  pounds  of  stuffed  eggs,  goose-liver  paste, 
sliced  ham,  potato  salad,  pickled  beets,  prawns  in 
aspic,  corned  beef,  jellied  tongue,  smoked  salmon, 
and  cold  roast  what  not.  Ten  Polish  marks  was  the 
tax  for  all  this  or  for  any  part;  and  ten  Polish  marks, 
when  I  was  in  Warsaw,  was  the  equivalent  of  eight 
cents  in  American  money.  After  a  Pole  had  finished 
with  his  plate  of  appetizers  he  would  settle  down 
to  a  couple  of  hours  of  steady  eating. 

All  this,  however,  was  in  the  dear  departed  days 
before  the  Food  Ministry  and  the  Department  for 
Fighting  Speculation  and  Profiteering  got  in  its 
deadly  work.  They  passed  a  decree  which  abolished 
the  wonderful  spread  of  appetizers  which  had  em- 

25 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

tellished  every  restaurant.  By  this  decree  every 
restaurant,  hotel,  and  club  was  prohibited  from 
serving  dinners  consisting  of  more  than  a  soup,  one 
meat  or  fish  dish,  vegetables,  preserved  fruit,  and  a 
small  cup  of  coffee.  The  weight  of  the  meat  or  fish 
was  forbidden  to  exceed  one  third  of  a  pound.  No- 
body could  have  a  piece  of  bread  which  weighed 
more  than  an  ounce  and  a  half,  and  he  had  to  ask 
for  that  to  get  it.  And  once  he  got  it,  he  was 
forbidden  to  leave  any  of  it  on  the  restaurant  table. 
He  either  had  to  eat  it  or  carry  it  away  in  his  pocket. 
The  price  of  the  bread  was  forbidden  to  exceed  the 
purchase  price  plus  15  per  cent.  Concerning  sugar, 
the  order  declared  that  "the  using  of  sugar  for 
sweetening  hot  and  cold  drinks,  omelets  and  other 
sweet  dishes,  is  prohibited."  This  seemed  to  imply 
that  there  was  some  way  in  which  sugar  could  be 
used  in  restaurants;  but  unless  the  customers 
wanted  to  smoke  it  in  their  pipes  or  eat  it  straight 
it  was  hard  to  see  how  it  could  be  done.  Every 
bottle  of  wine  had  to  be  provided  with  a  tag  stating 
the  price  of  the  bottle  and  the  price  of  one  glassful 
of  the  wine,  and  also  stating  the  exact  dimensions 
of  the  glass  which  would  be  filled  at  the  given  price. 
All  these  regulations  were  put  into  effect  merely 
because  the  government  wished  to  stop  speculation 
in  food  as  far  as  it  could,  and  also  because  of  the 
moral  effect  on  the  people.  To  stop  the  restaurants 
from  selling  appetizers  didn't  mean  that  more  food 
could  be  distributed  to  the  people,  for  all  the  ap- 
petizers in  the  country  amounted  to  a  small  drop 
in  an  enormous  bucket.  But  it  meant  that  the 
hungry  people  on  the  street  couldn't  peer  through 

26 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

the  restaurant  windows  and  see  other  people  stuffing 
themselves  while  the  masses  were  staggering  along 
on  starvation  rations.  If  Germany,  which  has  more 
food  in  a  week  than  Poland  has  in  a  month,  were  to 
adopt  such  measures  as  Poland  has  adopted  to  curb 
food  speculation,  her  wails  might  be  listened  to  with 
a  little  more  care  and  a  little  more  confidence. 

There  doesn't  begin  to  be  enough  food  in  Poland 
to  feed  everybody.  If  all  the  eatables  in  the  country 
were  divided  into  equal  rations  and  distributed 
among  the  people,  they  couldn't  live  on  what  they 
got.  The  people  are  allowed  to  buy  a  certain  amount 
of  food  at  a  low  price  each  week,  if  the  food  can  be 
delivered.  Sometimes  it  can't  be  delivered.  In 
many  cases  the  people  don't  have  enough  money  to 
pay  the  low  government  price;  but  somehow  or 
other  they  manage  to  exist.  In  many  other  cases 
the  people  can  barely  afford  to  buy  the  government 
ration;  but  the  government  ration  by  itself  isn't 
sufficient  to  live  on,  even  when  it  can  be  delivered. 
Yet  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people 
living  on  it. 

It  is  an  irritating  affair,  in  the  countries  of  Central 
Europe,  to  attempt  to  find  out  how  a  poor  person 
lives  at  the  present  time.  One  gets  such  a  person 
and  backs  him  into  a  corner  and  questions  him 
carefully.  He  is  always  willing  to  give  information. 
He  has  little  personal  pride  left,  for  hunger  has 
made  him  numb  and  tired  and  helpless.  You  ask 
him  how  much  money  he  earns,  and  you  find  out 
that  it  is  a  very  small  amount.  You  ask  him  what 
he  needs  each  day.  He  mentions  bread  and  potatoes 
and  coffee  and  carrots  and  cabbage.    He  mentions 

3  27 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

lard,  but  adds  that  only  a  rich  man  can  afford  lard. 
Knowing  the  prices,  you  add  them  up,  multiply 
them  by  the  number  of  days  in  a  year,  and  discover 
that  the  result  is  a  larger  amount  of  money  than  the 
man  earns.  And  no  mention  ha,s  been  made  of  rent 
or  meat  or  clothes  or  shoes  or  car  fares  or  medicines 
or  heat  or  light  or  any  other  necessities  of  life. 
It  is  a  difficult  matter  to  comprehend. 

For  example,  I  rode  out  to  the  town  of  Sklernie- 
wice,  upward  of  sixty  kilometers  out  of  Warsaw. 
The  weather  was  bitterly  cold,  and  our  machine 
had  to  be  shoveled  out  of  six  snowdrifts.  The  Polish 
system  of  child  feeding  had  broken  down,  and  the 
Americans  were  taking  it  over.  Hoover  knew  how 
to  pick  his  men.  They  work  all  day,  and  most  of 
the  night  as  well.  At  any  rate,  we  poked  round 
Skiemiewice  and  got  up  on  to  the  second  floor  of  an 
old  rattle-trap  apartment  house.  A  door  was  un- 
latched, so  we  went  in.  The  room  was  a  tiny  little 
one,  under  the  eaves,  and  it  had  one  window  in  it, 
and  three  children  and  a  hen.  It  was  the  sole  resi- 
dence of  one  family.  The  hen  was  tied  to  a  bed- 
post. One  of  the  children  was  a  baby,  and  it  was 
asleep  on  a  dilapidated  bed.  The  two  other  chil- 
dren were  four  and  six  years  old.  Four-years  was  a 
boy,  and  Six-years  was  a  girl.  There  was  a  Httle 
stove  in  the  room,  and  from  the  stove  a  rusty  stove- 
pipe ran  straight  back  through  the  wall.  On  top 
of  the  rusty  stovepipe  were  seven  slices  of  raw  po- 
tato. Six-years  was  waiting  for  them  to  get  warm, 
and  then  she  and  Four-years  were  going  to  eat 
them.  It  was  their  evening  meal.  Seven  slices  of 
warm  raw  potato!    The  mother  was  out  working 

28 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

for  ten  marks  a  day.  If  she  worked  steadily  for  two 
months,  Sundays  included,  and  didn't  spend  a  cent 
for  food,  rent,  clothes,  or  anything  else,  her  two 
months'  earnings  would  be  exactly  enough  to  buy 
one  pair  of  shoes.  The  mother  and  the  baby  and 
Six-years  and  Four-years  had  breakfasted  on  a  cup 
of  coffee  apiece.  And  two  of  them  were  dining  on 
seven  slices  of  warm  raw  potato.  God  knows  how 
the  hen  lived.  '  I  forgot  to  ask. 

Actually,  as  I  have  said  before,  most  of  Poland's 
present  woes  hinge  on  the  poor  transportation  facili- 
ties ;  but  to  the  great  run  of  people  everything  seems 
to  hinge  on  the  money  problem.  If  the  country 
could  feed  the  people  and  distribute  raw  materials 
to  the  factories  and  export  its  natural  resources  and 
manufactured  products,  the  value  of  the  Polish 
money  would  soon  improve.  But  since  it  can't  be 
done,  Polish  money  slides  down  and  down  in  value. 
This  is  the  only  angle  of  the  problem  which  the 
masses  are  able  to  see,  and  it  gets,  as  the  saying  goes, 
their  goats.  And  I  don't  mind  saying  that  it 
would  get  the  goat  of  anybody  in  the  world  who  had 
to  live  in  Poland  and  be  paid  in  Polish  money  for  his 
labors. 

The  Polish  monetary  unit  is  the  Polish  mark. 
The  bulk  of  Poland,  having  been  a  part  of  Russia, 
used  to  use  the  Russian  ruble ;  another  part  used  the 
Austrian  crown ;  and  the  third  part  used  the  German 
mark.  When  the  Germans  swept  across  the  country 
and  occupied  it  during  the  war,  they  flooded  it  with 
a  new  species  of  currency — the  Polish  mark.  This  is 
a  gaudy  bit  of  poster  work,  flamboyantly  printed 
in  red  and  white  and  bearing  large  white  eagles. 

29 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

The  Germans  printed  it  in  carload  lots  on  any  old 
kind  of  paper.  There  is  plenty  of  it;  but  since 
Poland  is  not  an  overcleanly  country  just  at  present, 
it  is  in  a  revolting  state  of  filth  and  raggedness. 
They  printed  it  day  and  night,  and  whenever  they 
purchased  supplies  or  did  not  resort  to  ordinary 
stealing  they  paid  with  this  imitation  or  almost 
money.  The  Poles  have  therefore  had  this  unit  of 
exchange  wished  on  them,  so  to  speak.  There  is  a 
chance  that  some  day  Germany  may  back  up  the 
enormous  amount  of  money  which  she  printed  in 
Poland,  but  it  would  be  impossible  to  get  a  Pole  to 
bet  a  Polish  nickel  on  it.  I  doubt,  too,  whether 
any  German  would  consider  it  a  good  speculation. 
Supposedly,  the  Polish  mark  and  the  German  mark 
are  worth  the  same  amount  of  money,  so  that  in 
normal  times  one  Polish  mark  would  be  worth 
24  cents  in  American  money.  Early  in  January 
one  American  dollar  would  purchase  120  Polish 
marks,  so  that  each  mark  was  worth  less  than  one 
cent.  The  rate  of  exchange  wasn't  stationary  at 
120  for  a  dollar  by  any  means.  During  one  of  the 
days  when  I  was  in  Warsaw  it  hit  150  and  then  re- 
covered somewhat.  But  since  I  changed  my  dollars 
at  120  I  shall  call  that  the  rate.  A  person  can  get 
himself  into  a  frightful  mess  by  changing  m.oney 
back  and  forth  from  the  currency  of  one  Central 
European  country  to  that  of  another.  I  experi- 
mented in  Berlin.  Late  in  December  I  went  to  a 
BerHn  bank  with  $10  clutched  tightly  in  my  hand. 
At  the  foreign-exchange  window  I  exchanged  the 
$10  for  475  German  marks.  I  walked  round  the 
corner  to  another  bank  and  traded  the  475  German 

30 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

marks  for  950  Polish  marks.  I  went  to  a  third  bank 
and  changed  the  Polish  marks  back  into  German 
marks,  receiving  370  German  marks  for  them.  At 
a  fourth  bank  I  exchanged  the  German  marks  for 
American  dollars,  and  received  $7.15  for  them. 
Thus  I  had  lost  over  25  per  cent  by  changing  my 
money  on  one  day  when  the  rate  of  exchange  was 
supposed  to  be  stationary.  If  I  had  changed  my 
money  into  German  marks,  then  into  Polish  marks, 
then  into  Austrian  crowns,  and  then  reversed  the 
process,  allowing  a  few  days  to  elapse  between  each 
process  step,  I  would  probably  have  ended  by  owing 
money  to  the  bank. 

There  is  a  young  American  diplomat  in  Warsaw 
who  arrived  there  early  last  November,  when  the 
Polish  mark  could  be  obtained  at  the  Warsaw  banks 
at  the  rate  of  38  for  an  American  dollar.  This 
made  the  mark  worth  about  2  2-3  cents.  The 
young  American  diplomat  had  brought  a  large  bale 
of  American  money  with  him,  and  he  was  terribly 
excited  to  think  that  he  could  get  38  whole  marks 
with  just  one  little  American  dollar.  So  he  ex- 
changed his  entire  roll  into  Polish  marks  at  the 
rate  of  38  for  one.  Only  two  months  later  one  dollar 
would  buy  120  marks.  Consequently  the  money 
of  the  young  American  diplomat  was  worth  only 
one  third  of  what  it  was  worth  when  he  originally 
changed  it.  Whenever  he  wanted  to  get  one 
mark's  worth  of  anything  he  had  to  spend  three 
marks  for  it.  From  this  one  can  get  an  inkling 
of  the  involved  money  situation  in  Poland.  With 
a  little  exercise  of  the  imagination  one  can  also  get 
a  vague  idea  of  the  feelings  of  a  Pole  whose  income 

31 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

used  to  be  10,000  marks,  or  about  $2,500.  Last 
January  the  value  of  a  10,000-mark  income  had 
fallen  to  about  $85.  A  10,000-mark  income  in  the 
old  days  used  to  be  a  pretty  snappy  nest  egg.  To- 
day a  man  who  tries  to  exist  on  it  suffers  severely. 

As  the  money  depreciates,  the  costs  of  all  things 
rise.  The  shopkeepers  try  to  keep  pace  with  the  fall- 
ing money  values;  but  as  a  rule  they  can't  work  fast 
enough.  For  example,  an  American  woman  in  War- 
saw bought  a  beautiful  moleskin  coat  in  November 
for  5,500  marks.  At  the  time  when  she  bought  it 
5,500  marks  represented  $150  to  her.  Moleskin 
coats,  I  am  told,  cost  at  least  $700  in  America.  At 
any  rate,  she  paid  5,500  marks,  or  $150,  for  it.  In 
January  vshe  bought  another.  In  that  time  the  price 
had  risen  to  14,000  marks — nearly  triple — but  14,000 
marks  in  January  represented  less  than  $120.  The 
furrier  had  tried  to  keep  pace  with  the  falling  ex- 
change, but  hadn't  been  able  to  do  it. 

For  Americans  the  prices  in  Warsaw  are  as  cheap 
as  dirt — and  considerably  cheaper  than  American 
dirt,  I'm  sure.  My  room  at  the  best  hotel  in  the 
city,  with  breakfast,  seldom  amounted  to  more  than 
80  cents  a  day.  One  could  have  a  suit  cleaned  and 
pressed  for  9  cents.  A  pound  of  butter  cost  16 
cents,  and  a  pound  of  beefsteak  cost  10  cents.  A 
dozen  eggs  cost  20  cents.  A  suit  of  clothes  could  be 
bought  from  one  of  the  best  tailors  in  Warsaw  for 
$22.  One  could  entertain  his  friends  at  a  sumptuous 
banquet,  with  two  or  three  kinds  of  wine — that 
was  before  the  new  food  regulations  went  into  effect 
— for  about  $1.50  or  $2  a  plate.  One  could  take  a 
party  to  the  opera — and  the  opera  in  Warsaw  is 

32 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

real  big-league  stuff — and  have  the  royal  box  in  the 
first  tier  of  the  diamond  horseshoe  for  80  cents. 
Diamonds  could  be  purchased  at  a  price  that  would 
make  a  Fifth  Avenue  jeweler  sob  noisily.  A  two- 
carat  blue-white  diamond  that  would,  according  to 
Central  European  rumor,  bring  $1,000  in  the  United 
States,  could  be  bought  in  Warsaw  for  the  equivalent 
of  $200.  The  English,  the  French,  the  Italians,  the 
Americans,  the  Danes,  the  Dutch — all  were  buying 
diamonds  to  take  home  with  them.  The  jewelry 
stores  had  few  goods  except  those  in  their  windows. 

A  jeweler  tried  to  sell  me  a  platinum  cigarette  case 
for  $200.  It  was  about  the  same  weight  as  a  frying 
pan,  and  would  have  been  worth  at  least  $1,500  in 
America.  Two  Americans  in  the  consular  service  in 
Warsaw  have  an  apartment  consisting  of  a  living 
room,  two  bedrooms,  a  bathroom,  a  maid's  room,  and 
a  kitchen.  For  this,  last  January,  they  paid  less  than 
a  cent  a  day  rent.  They  kept  two  servants,  had 
electric  lights  and  a  telephone,  and  had  champagne 
every  night  for  dinner.  Their  expenses  for  the 
apartment,  servants,  food,  light,  heat,  and  laundry- 
averaged  $35  a  month,  or  only  a  little  over  $400  a 
year.  Yet  to  a  Pole  that  would  represent  about 
50,000  marks  a  year  at  the  January  exchange  rates ; 
and  50,000  marks  is  something  of  a  salary  in  Poland. 
In  fact,  a  Cabinet  Minister  receives  38,400  marks — 
quite  a  little  less  than  the  equivalent  of  $400. 

Polish  workmen,  who  are  the  best-paid  people  in 
Poland,  taking  them  as  a  class,  are  paid  20  to  40 
marks  a  day.  Allowing  that  they  work  six  days  a 
week  and  fifty- two  weeks  a  year,  which  they  don't, 
they  would  earn  from  6,300  to  12,600  marks  a  year. 

33 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Polish  laborers,  at  the  present  writing,  dodge  work 
whenever  they  can.  Shops  close,  without  any  ap- 
parent reason,  for  days  at  a  time.  The  Poles 
seem  to  celebrate  not  only  their  own  holidays,  but 
also  the  holidays  of  nations  which  have  conquered 
or  oppressed  them  in  the  past  and  of  nations  which 
are  helping  them  at  present.  There  is  in  Poland  a 
League  of  Work  which  is  attempting  to  persuade  the 
laborers  to  do  more  work.  The  league  has  figured 
that  every  holiday  causes  the  Polish  nation  to  lose 
100,000,000  marks.  It  succeeded  in  persuading  the 
city  government  of  Warsaw  to  annul  seven  holidays, 
among  which  were  the  second  day  of  Christmas,  the 
second  day  of  Easter,  Whitsuntide,  and  Saint 
Stanislaus's  Day.  The  laborers,  however,  failed  to 
appreciate  the  effort  of  the  League  of  Work  and 
showed  signs  of  wishing  to  revolt  against  the  in- 
human decree  which  would  curtail  their  loafing. 

None  the  less,  a  generous  estimate  places  the 
earnings  of  a  Polish  workman  between  6,300  and 
12,600  marks  a  year.  A  coal  miner,  earns  about 
7 ,000  marks  a  year.  This  is  unskilled  labor.  Skilled 
labor  earns  more,  and  in  certain  cases  receives  as 
high  as  20,000  marks  a  year.  The  laborers  are  much 
better  off  than  professors,  minor  government  officials, 
clerks,  salesmen,  teachers,  lawyers,  and  architects. 
The  latter,  in  many  cases,  earn  about  one  fourth  of 
the  amount  that  laborers  earn.  This  is  a  familiar 
story  in  Central  Europe,  as  it  is  in  almost  every  coun- 
try in  the  world. 

The  average  wage  of  the  head  of  a  family  in  Polish 
cities  is  about  8,000  marks  a  year;  and  on  this 
8,ooQ  marks  a  family  must  lodge  and  feed  and  clothe 

34 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

itself.  Eight  thousand  marks  is  a  very  generous 
estimate.  But  of  the  33,000,000  people  who  make 
up  the  population  of  Poland,  there  are  millions 
who  get  less,  and  not  many  hundreds  of  thousands 
who  get  more.  Allowing  that  a  family  has  an 
income  of  8,000  marks  a  year,  let  us  see  what  could 
be  bought  for  that  amount.  The  family  has  got  to 
live  somewhere,  so  we'll  allow  them  one  wretched 
room  in  a  bad  section  of  town.  They  can  get  such 
a  room  for  about  200  marks  a  year — rents  being  the 
only  things  which  haven't  increased  greatly  in  price. 
Everything  else  has  jumped  from  300  to  1,800  per 
cent.  Bread  is  the  staple  food  in  Poland,  so  we'll 
allow  him  one  loaf  of  vile  black  bread  each  day — 
seven  loaves  a  week  at  the  government-regulated 
price  of  ij4  marks  a  loaf.  They  can't  live  on  that, 
but  that's  all  we'll  allow  them.  That  amounts  to 
456  marks  a  year.  Then  we'll  allow  them  half  a 
poimd  of  tea  or  coffee  each  week.  That,  in  one  year, 
would  amount  to  676  marks.  Suppose  the  family 
had  one  pound  of  meat  once  a  week  at  10  marks  a 
pound.  They  can't  get  it  for  that,  but  they're 
supposed  to;  so  we'll  allow  it  to  them.  That 
amounts  to  520  marks  a  year.  Allow  them  two 
cabbages  a  week  at  3  marks  a  cabbage;  that  makes 
312  marks.  We'll  allow  them  just  enough  fuel  to 
cook  one  meal  a  day.  That  would  cost  20  marks 
a  week,  or  1,040  marks  a  year.  We'll  allow  them 
two  pounds  of  flour  a  week  at  16  marks  a  pound. 
That  runs  up  to  1,600  marks  a  year.  We'll  allow 
them  two  pairs  of  boots  for  the  entire  family  for 
one  year,  which  makes  1,200  marks;  and  two  very 
cheap  suits  of  clothes  for  the  entire  family,  which 

35 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

makes  another  2,000  marks.  Total  that  up  and 
you'll  find  that  it  amounts  to  8,000  marks.  That 
allows  for  no  sugar,  no  butter,  no  lard,  no  salt,  no 
eggs,  no  milk,  no  education,  no  taxes,  no  underwear, 
no  soap,  no  street-car  fares.  Yet  there  are  millions 
of  people  in  Poland  living  on  less  than  that. 

I  have  before  me  a  budget  for  a  family  composed 
of  three  grown  persons  and  two  children.  It  is 
pared  down  as  far  as  it  can  be  pared,  so  that  the 
family  can  live  with  every  economy  and  yet  be 
adequately  nourished  and  decently  clothed.  It 
figures  up  to  4,957.35  marks  a  month,  or  59,488 
marks  a  year.  That's  only  about  $500  in  American 
money;  but  for  a  Pole  it's  a  fortune.  Before  the 
war  that  same  budget  would  have  figured  up  to  2,800 
marks.  Think  this  over,  all  you  Americans  who  are 
suffering  because  living  costs  have  risen  100  per  cent 
in  America. 

If  a  Pole  wanted  to  buy  a  six-pound  turkey  every 
week  for  his  Sunday  dinners,  he  would  pay  out  in  the 
course  of  a  year  for  turkey  alone  9,360  marks,  or 
more  than  the  average  earnings  of  a  workman. 
How  can  people  live  when  they  have  so  little  to  live 
on  and  so  httle  to  eat?  I  don't  know.  I  prowled 
round  the  tenement  district  of  Warsaw,  and  got 
into  buildings  where  two  or  three  families  were  oc- 
cupying a  single  room  and  living  on  nothing  but 
black  bread  and  decayed  vegetables.  Some  of  those 
rooms  had  sixteen  or  eighteen  people  in  them.  There 
were  people  living  in  the  cellars,  where  they  got  no 
daylight  and  could  afford  no  candlelight.  There  were 
families  living  in  little  holes  under  stairways  and  bor- 
rowing enough  heat  from  their  more  fortunate  neigh- 

36 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

bors  to  cook  a  pot  of  coffee  or  a  bowl  of  carrot  soup. 
I  got  into  one  horrible  den — an  old  rabbit  war- 
ren of  a  building — in  which  three  thousand  people 
lived.  It  wasn't  extremely  large,  but  it  was  infested 
with  people,  just  as  decayed  matter  is  infested  with 
crawling  things.  The  people  lived  among  heaps  of 
rags  in  corners  and  burrowed  among  one  another 
on  floors ;  six  or  eight  children  would  sleep  in  a  single 
bed  with  no  covering  except  loose  rags.  None  of 
those  people,  except  the  children  who  were  getting 
one  meal  a  day  from  the  Americans,  had  eaten  a 
square  meal  for  years.  I'll  just  repeat  that,  in  case 
you  missed  it.  None  of  those  people,  except  some 
of  the  children,  had  eaten  a  square  meal  for  years. 
They  didn't  know  what  a  full  stomach  felt  like. 

Warsaw  is  so  crowded  with  refugees  and  repatriates 
from  Bolshevik  Russia  and  the  devastated  regions 
to  the  north  that  there  is  scarcely  a  hole  into  which 
one  can  crawl  and  rest.  Private  houses  have  been 
requisitioned  by  the  authorities.  There  are  1,000,000 
people  in  Warsaw — 100,000  more  than  before  the 
war  and  300,000  more  than  during  the  war — and 
less  than  5  per  cent  of  them  get  one  square  meal  a 
day.  The  rest  of  them  have  just  been  squeaking 
along  for  years.  Their  stomachs  have  shriveled 
up  to  such  an  extent  that  if  an  opportunity  were 
given  them  to  eat  largely  they  wouldn't  be  able 
to  take  advantage  of  it. 

The  Warsaw  bread  lines  are  disturbing  spectacles. 
The  Poles  are  not  good  organizers,  and  they  cannot 
distribute  their  rationed  food  with  any  efficiency. 
The  people  have  had  many  sad  experiences  at  getting 
bread ;  for  there  have  been  occasions  when  the  bread 

37 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

gave  out  and  they  went  without  for  days.  So  each 
day  sees  a  long  bread  line  at  the  door  of  every  bread- 
distributing  center.  There  are  hundreds  of  them, 
and  they  are  scattered  all  over  the  city.  The  lines 
start  forming  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The 
people  stand  in  the  ice  and  snow  for  hours  on  end, 
clad  in  shoddy  garments  and  broken  shoes.  The 
bitter  wind  whistles  down  the  street,  and  the  people 
hunch  up  their  shoulders  and  shrivel  into  themselves 
and  wait  for  the  bread.  They  wait  for  hours  on 
end — thousands  of  them.  I  went  out  early  one 
morning  after  a  heavy  rainstorm.  The  temperature 
was  falling  rapidly,  and  the  lines  were  standing  in 
pools  of  water  which  were  freezing  at  the  edges. 
The  people  were  jammed  so  closely  together  that 
when  a  military  policeman  hauled  a  person  out  of 
the  line  for  cheating,  the  whole  line  toppled  over 
like  a  row  of  cards.  Those  people  stood  in  line 
from  four  until  half  past  ten  in  the  morning — six 
hours  and  a  half  in  freezing  slush.  In  the  coldest 
part  of  early  winter,  when  the  bread  gave  out 
entirely  for  a  while,  they  stood  in  line  through  entire 
nights  with  the  temperature  below  zero.  These 
conditions  threaten  to  become  worse  instead  of 
better. 

There  are  lines  in  Poland  for  everything.  Each 
day,  opposite  the  hotel  where  I  lived,  there  was  a  line 
one  block  long  waiting  for  cigarettes.  The  govern- 
ment had  purchased  cigarettes,  which  were  sold  to  the 
people  at  three  marks  a  package,  instead  of  at  the 
ordinary  price  of  six  marks  and  higher.  Men  stood 
in  line  for  hours  to  get  a  single  package,  and  though 
the  tobacco  had  the  same  fragrance  that  rises  from 

38 


POLAND   FOR  PATRIOTISM 

smoldering  rags  and  damp  hair  mattresses  on  the 
town  dump,  the  Poles  would  willingly  have  waited 
twice  as  long  if  it  had  been  necessary.  Occasionally, 
one  would  find  a  line  of  people  formed  along  a  side- 
walk without  any  apparent  reason.  When  they  were 
questioned  as  to  why  they  were  waiting  in  line  they 
would  stare  blankly  at  the  questioner  and  continue  to 
stand.  It  was  generally  believed  in  Warsaw  that 
the  people  had  contracted  the  line-forming  habit 
and  that  whenever  they  saw  a  person  standing  any- 
where they  instinctively  crowded  up  behind  him  and 
formed  a  line. 

The  weakened  condition  which  the  people  are  in 
because  of  their  lack  of  food  and  the  manner  in  which 
they  crowd  together  each  day,  makes  them  excellent 
targets  for  epidemics.  In  January  there  was  an 
influenza  epidemic  which  killed  them  off  like  flies. 
Funerals  passed  through  the  streets  all  day  long. 
It  was  a  particularly  virulent  epidemic,  for  those 
who  died  of  it  died  within  twenty -four  hours  of  the 
time  when  they  became  ill. 

Conditions  in  Poland  would  be  infinitely  worse 
were  it  not  for  the  activities  of  the  American  Child 
Feeders— or,  to  give  them  their  proper  title,  the  Ameri- 
can Relief  Administration,  European  Children's  Fund, 
Mission  to  Poland.  This  is  a  Hoover  outfit  under 
the  direction  of  Lieut.  W.  P.  Fuller,  a  young  ex-naval 
officer.  It  feeds  1,300,000  children  one  meal  a  day, 
and  in  order  to  keep  thing?  working  smoothly  it  has 
to  do  some  brisk  hustling.  In  all  of  Central  Europe 
the  Hoover  Child  Feeders  have  something  of  a  job 
on  their  hands;  but  the  mission  to  Poland  has  to 
do  more  sitting  up  nights  than  any  of  the  other 

39 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

Hoover  missions  which  are  doing  such  a  wonderful 
work;  1,300,000  children  is  quite  a  sizable  mob  to 
feed  every  day,  when  one  stops  to  consider  it.  They 
are  fed  without  any  distinction  as  to  race  or  creed. 
In  Warsaw  there  are  eight  Christian  kitchens  and 
five  Jewish  kitchens,  and  in  the  Warsaw  district 
alone  161,150  children  are  fed  each  day. 

The  feeding  stations  are  scattered  all  over  Warsaw. 
One  can  visit  any  one  of  them  on  any  morning  in  the 
year  and  always  see  the  same  spectacle-— thousands 
of  wretchedly  clothed,  pinched-faced  youngsters  with 
battered  mugs  and  spoons  waiting  for  a  chance  at 
the  American  food.  The  children  can't  take  the 
food  home  with  them;  they  have  to  eat  it  at  the 
feeding  stations,  unless  they  represent  a  school.  If 
two  youngsters  stagger  in  from  a  school,  holding 
between  them  a  stick  from  which  dangles  an  enor- 
mous kettle,  they  can  carry  the  kettleful  back  to  the 
school  and  eat  it  there  under  the  watchful  eyes  of  the 
teachers.  But  all  individuals  must  eat  at  the  feed- 
ing stations.  This  rule  is  due  to  the  desire  of  the 
Child  Feeders  to  be  sure  that  the  children  get  the 
food. 

Hungry  people  aren't  always  so  self-sacrificing  as 
they  might  be;  and  if  a  child  should  show  up  before 
two  hungry  parents  with  a  bowl  of  savory  soup  the 
food  might  feed  the  parents  instead  of  the  child.  So 
the  Child  Feeders  don't  feel  that  they  are  doing  their 
duty  by  the  children  until  they  have  watched  the 
food  enter  their  mouths. 

The  meal  isn't  overlarge  from  our  standpoint; 
but  from  the  standpoint  of  a  Polish  child  it's  a 
banquet.     It  consists  usually  of  a  pleasing  mixture 

do 


POLAND   FOR  PATRIOTISM 

of  beans,  rice,  and  meat,  with  a  small  slug  of  olive  oil 
floating  on  top  to  provide  the  much-needed  fat. 
People  in  America  don't  know  what  it  is  to  be  with- 
out fats;  but  the  people  of  Central  Europe  haven't 
had  fats  for  a  couple  of  years.  They  long  for  fats; 
they  hone  for  fats  constantly.  A  person  has  to  live  in 
Central  Europe  to  know  the  craving.  In  the  case  of 
the  Polish  children  who  are  fed  by  the  Americans, 
the  one  plate  of  soup  is  all  they  get  to  eat  during  the 
entire  day.  Sometimes  they  get  a  piece  of  black 
bread  eariy  in  the  morning  and  some  succulent  dainty 
like  a  boiled  potato  or  carrot  at  night.  But  just  as 
often  they  get  nothing  but  the  young  meal  which 
Mr.  Hoover's  young  men  see  that  they  get. 

The  Child  Feeders  are  also  distributing  clothes  to 
Polish  children.  For  poor  people  the  price  of  clothes 
is  prohibitive.  A  workman  who  earns  8,000  marks 
a  year,  for  example,  would  have  to  pay  out  three 
whole  months'  salary  if  he  wanted  even  a  cheap 
shoddy  suit  which  would  stand  two  months'  hard 
wear.  We'd  have  the  same  thing  in  America  if  a 
man  earning  $4,000  a  year  had  to  pay  $1,000  for  a 
ready-made  suit  of  the  cheapest  sort.  So  the 
Child  Feeders  are  distributing  700,000  outfits  of  new 
clothing — cloth  cut  for  an  overcoat,  but  not  sewed 
together,  shoes,  stockings,  shoe  laces,  one  hundred 
yards  of  thread  and  a  needle — a  needle  and  a  half, 
in  fact.  There  are  three  needles  for  every  two 
outfits,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Child  Feeders  to  ex- 
plain the  needle  and  a  half  have  almost  resulted  in 
sending  a  large  number  of  Poles  to  the  insane 
asylum. 

The  Red  Cross,  too,  is  distributing  clothing  in 

41 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

addition  to  sending  out  medicines  and  anaesthetics 
and  vaccines  which  it  manufactures  in  its  Warsaw 
laboratories,  and  in  addition  to  sending  doctors  and 
nurses  through  the  districts  which  are  suffering  the 
most.  The  Red  Cross  has  big  warehouses  in  War- 
saw, and  in  them,  among  other  things,  they  sort  and 
bale  the  clothing  which  comes  out  of  America  for  the 
Poles.  I  found  a  Russian  judge  and  an  ex-colonel 
from  the  Russian  army  and  two  young  women  who 
were  the  daughters  of  the  president  of  the  Kieff 
Street  Railway  Company  sorting  second-hand  Amer- 
ican shoes  in  a  Red  Cross  warehouse.  Before  escap- 
ing from  Russia  the  judge  had  a  dandy  time  with 
the  Bolsheviks.  They  pulled  out  all  his  teeth  and 
jabbed  him  in  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  places  with 
their  bayonets.  He  is  now  receiving  the  munificent 
salary  of  500  marks  a  month,  or  $4.  On  top  of  the 
pile  of  shoes  on  which  the  judge  was  working  was  a 
neat-looking  American  woman's  boot  made  out  of 
dark-blue  cloth.  It  was  a  pretty  No.  2  boot,  and  it 
came  from  the  Famous  Shoe  Store  in  Paris,  Texas. 
But  the  judge  couldn't  find  the  mate  to  it.  I  think 
he  has  an  idea  that  the  residents  of  Paris,  Texas, 
have  each  only  one  leg. 

Bad  as  are  the  conditions  in  Warsaw,  they  are 
infinitely  worse  in  the  sections  of  Poland  which  were 
devastated  by  the  Germans  behind  their  lines  during 
the  war.  This  region  lies  to  the  north  and  east  of 
Warsaw.  The  people  were  driven  out  of  it,  houses 
and  factories  and  even  trees  were  razed  to  the 
ground,  and  all  the  landmarks  were  destroyed. 
Now  the  people  have  moved  in  again,  and  are  living 
in  the  old  German  dugouts  and  trenches,  under  banks 

42 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

of  earth,  among  the  roots  of  tree  stumps  and  under 
the  rudest  and  flimsiest  shelters.  In  many  in- 
stances they  have  no  regular  food  at  all.  That  is  to 
say,  they  have  neither  bread,  meat,  nor  vegetables. 
Our  minister  to  Poland,  Hugh  Gibson — another 
young  man  to  whom  the  Poles  are  very  grateful 
and  whom  America  is  fortunate  to  have  as  a  repre- 
sentative— went  up  into  this  district.  Mr.  Gibson 
is  an  accurate  and  reliable  observer.  He  found  entire 
settlements  where  people  were  living  on  grass  or  on 
roots  and  thistles  boiled  down  into  soup.  All  the 
people  had  swollen  stomachs,  and  faces  which  were 
old  and  monkeylike  from  starvation.  In  one  settle- 
ment Mr.  Gibson  was  told  of  a  family  that  had  some 
bread.  It  was  spoken  of  in  hushed  and  admiring 
tones.  Bread!  Think  of  it!  Mr.  Gibson  investi- 
gated. He  wanted  to  find  out  how  they  got  the 
bread.  He  located  the  people  who  had  it,  and  they 
took  it  out  of  what  corresponded  to  the  family  safe- 
deposit  box  and  exhibited  it  proudly.  It  was  a  red- 
dish-brown mass  about  the  size  of  a  coconut,  and 
it  had  a  foul  smell.  It  was  made  from  a  flour  com- 
pounded of  pulverized  beets  and  carrots  and  roots 
and  dried  grass — the  vilest  comic  valentine  of  bread. 

Dr.  Placida  Gardner,  a  comely  young  American 
woman,  is  making  vaccines  in  Warsaw  for  the 
American  Red  Cross.  She  toyed  carelessly  with  a 
glass  tube  containing  cholera  bacilli  which  she  had 
reared  herself,  and  spoke  of  some  of  the  towns  she 
had  visited.  She  went  down  to  Kovel  to  work  on  a 
cholera  epidemic.  The  Bolshevik  prisoners  there 
had  so  few  clothes  that  they  could  go  out  only  at 
night.     At  Bobruisk  the  Bolsheviks  had  taken  the 

4  43 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

clothes  from  every  orphan  in  all  the  orphanages — 
all  the  clothes  from  twenty-three  hundred  orphans. 
At  Barnowitzi  the  orphanage  had  been  jammed  to  the 
door  for  three  months,  and  the  Red  Cross  couldn't 
get  any  transportation  facilities  to  empty  it  so  that 
the  waiting  and  starving  orphans  could  get  in. 
Hundreds  of  peasants  were  living  in  old  German 
dugouts  amid  the  greatest  misery,  for  even  German 
dugouts  have  their  drawbacks  as  town  houses. 
Families  were  packed  into  rooms  twelve  feet  square 
— twelve  and  fourteen  people  to  a  room.  The  vile- 
ness  of  such  rooms  is  indescribable.  In  one  place 
a  family  of  eight  had  forty  pounds  of  flour  made 
from  barley,  and  they  proposed  to  live  on  it  all  winter. 

The  Germans  had  destroyed  everything:  they 
had  stripped  every  factory  of  its  machinery;  they 
had  taken  all  the  cattle  and  every  bit  of  live  stock; 
they  had  taken  lightning  rods,  door  locks,  keyholes, 
door  knobs,  radiator  connections — everything,  and 
shipped  them  all  back  to  Germany.  They  did  all 
this  after  the  armistice — after  the  armistice!  They 
wasted  and  destroyed  all  things.  Over  miles  of 
territory,  thanks  to  the  Germans,  the  villages  of 
Poland  are  blown  dust  down  the  wind. 

They  laugh  at  Poland  in  Germany.  She  is  inef- 
ficient, they  say.  She  cannot  exist.  The  Poles  are 
lazy  dreamers.  They  can't  put  things  over.  The 
Germans  sneer  and  laugh,  and  the  Polish  army  pulls 
in  its  belt  around  its  empty  stomach,  and  Polish 
doughboys  in  Yankee  olive  drab  drive  back  the 
Bolshevik  hordes  that  threaten  to  overrun  the  world. 

The  domes  of  the  Russian  cathedral  in  Warsaw 
gleamed  gold  against  the  blue-gray  sky  before  the 

44 


POLAND   FOR  PATRIOTISM 

Germans  came.  But  the  Germans  climbed  up  and 
stripped  off  the  gold.  Bronze  letters  above  the 
entrance  set  forth  the  age  and  the  name  of  Warsaw 
University  before  the  Germans  came.  The  Ger- 
mans climbed  up  and  chiseled  them  away.  The 
Germans  jeer  at  the  Poles.  The  Poles  say  nothing, 
and  fight  on  against  the  Bolsheviks — the  last  stand 
of  the  forces  of  law  and  order  against  the  forces  of 
disorder  and  anarchy.  The  Germans  send  officers 
and  men  to  fight  with  the  Bolsheviks  against  the 
inefficient,  impractical  dreamers.  And  at  the  Peace 
Conference  there  are  gray-headed,  fusty  persons 
who  complain  querulously  that  the  war  is  over,  and 
ask  fretfully  why  Poland  doesn't  disband  her  army 
instead  of  wasting  so  much  money  keeping  expensive 
soldiers  under  arms.  The  Peace  Conference  has 
displayed  as  much  wisdom  and  judgment  in  settling 
the  affairs  of  Central  Europe  as  a  Hottentot  might  be 
expected  to  display  in  repairing  a  badly  damaged 
typewriter. 

The  story  of  the  Polish  army  is  a  remarkable  and 
a  hectic  one.  Sketchily  it  is  about  as  follows:  in 
January,  191 9,  the  Polish  army  didn't  exist.  There 
was,  however,  a  Polish  patriot  named  Joseph  Ginet 
Pilsudski.  He  was  born  in  1869,  and  even  in  his 
youth  he  was  plotting  and  planning  for  a  free  united 
Poland.  The  Russians  took  notice  of  his  pernicious 
activities  and  packed  him  off  to  Siberia  as  a  political 
prisoner.  When  he  was  released  from  Siberia  he 
came  back  to  Poland  and  became  the  editor  of  an 
anti-Russian  newspaper  called  The  Laborer.  This 
again  caused  the  Russians  great  pain,  because 
Pilsudski  said  some  very  nasty  things  about  them, 

45 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

So  they  backed  the  Black  Maria  up  to  the  office  of 
The  Laborer,  attached  the  gyves  to  Pilsudski's  wrists, 
and  gave  him  a  free  ride  to  Petrograd,  where  he  was 
placed  in  a  nice  cool  cell  in  the  leading  jail.  This 
bored  him,  so  he  feigned  insanity.  He  kept  it  up 
for  two  months,  and  presented  all  the  earmarks  of 
being  completely  loco,  not  to  say  nuts.  The  Rus- 
sians studied  his  case  carefully,  and  all  of  the  doc- 
tors said  that  he  was  the  looniest  thing  they  had  ever 
seen.  So  he  was  transferred  to  a  hospital,  whereat 
he  promptly  crawled  out  of  a  window  and  betook 
himself  to  the  uncut  timber. 

The  Russians  never  caught  him  again;  but  they 
heard  of  him  frequently,  because  he  was  constantly 
raiding  banks  and  holding  up  trains  and  indulging  in 
similar  irritating  activities  in  order  to  relieve  the 
Russian  authorities  of  money  that  belonged  to 
Poland.  At  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  came  into 
Russian  Poland  with  a  small  outfit  of  Polish  patriots 
and  started  a  private  war  of  his  own  against  the 
greatest  oppressor  of  his  nation — Russia,  He  formed 
Polish  legions  to  fight  for  a  free  Poland,  but  there 
was  no  Polish  army  as  such. 

In  January,  1919,  as  I  have  said,  the  Polish  army 
didn't  exist.  Poland,  as  a  separate  state,  had  just 
been  created,  and  she  was  in  a  bad  way.  In  fact, 
if  she  had  gone  out  hunting  for  bad  ways  she  prob- 
ably couldn't  have  found  a  worse  one. 

As  the  Germans  withdrew  through  Poland,  accord- 
ing to  the  terms  of  the  armistice,  the  Bolsheviks 
followed  them  up,  and  it  looked  as  though  they 
might  overrun  the  entire  country.  In  the  north, 
on  the  old  Russian-German  frontier,  the  Germans  still 

46 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

hung  on  where  they  had  no  right  to  hang;  in  the 
northeast  they  hngered  in  violation  of  the  armistice 
terms;  and  in  the  west  they  continued  to  occupy 
Posnania;  in  the  southwest  the  Czechoslovak  troops 
became  restless,  and  eventually  advanced  into  the 
coal  fields  which  Poland  regarded  as  belonging  to  her, 
and  took  them  by  force.  In  the  south,  as  the 
Austrians  withdrew  from  Galicia,  or  Austrian  Poland, 
they  brought  in  three  Ruthenian  regiments  and 
turned  over  the  city  of  Lemberg  to  them.  Lemberg 
is  an  essentially  Polish  city,  occupied  almost  entirely 
by  Poles,  and  it  should  be  Polish  territory  if  the 
nationality  and  desires  of  the  inhabitants  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  matter.  The  Ruthenians 
joined  with  the  anti-Bolshevik  Petlura  government  of 
the  Ukraine,  and  the  Ukrainians  thereupon  started 
to  squeeze  the  Poles  in  the  south. 

Starting  early  in  191 9,  Pilsudski  scratched  to- 
gether a  Polish  army.  He  used  his  secret  Polish 
legions,  as  well  as  trained  Polish  soldiers  from  the 
old  Russian  army,  and  Austrian-Polish  soldiers  from 
West  Galicia,  and  any  fighting  men  that  he  could 
scrape  together.  He  started  at  once  against  the 
Bolsheviks,  and  in  a  series  of  ^•ery  successful  opera- 
tions he  got  them  on  the  run  and  ran  them  until 
their  nether  garments  almost  fell  off.  In  Posnania 
the  Poles  pulled  themselves  together  and  chased  out 
the  Germans — though  even  up  to  the  beginning  of 
1920  there  were  minor  engagements  between  the 
Germans  and  the  Poles.  Down  in  Lemberg  the 
Polish  population  rose  against  the  Ukrainians.  The 
women  rose  and  fought  them,  and  little  schoolboys 
— who  weren't  as  tall  as  the  guns  which  they  used — 

47 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

rose  and  fought  them.  The  heroism  of  the  school- 
boys of  Lemberg  is  known  to  every  Pole.  They 
speak  of  them  with  an  approving  nod  of  the  head. 
"Good  patriots,"  they  say.  I'll  say  so,  too.  With 
the  help  of  the  Polish  women  and  the  PoHsh  school- 
boys of  Lemberg,  the  Ukrainians  were  ejected  from 
Lemberg  with  great  vigor.  The  Lembergians  were 
good  ejectors,  but  they  weren't  what  you  could  call 
a  trained  miHtary  force.  So  they  couldn't  follow  up 
their  victory.  They  could,  however,  and  did,  keep 
open  one  line  of  track  into  this  city ;  and  over  this 
track  provisions  were  brought  in  in  an  armored 
train.  The  Ukrainians  squatted  just  outside  and 
besieged  Lemberg,  shelling  it  frequently  and  killing 
about  thirty  people  each  day. 

In  the  spring  of  191 9  the  Haller  divisions,  which 
were  Polish  divisions  formed  in  the  United  States 
and  which  were  commanded  by  another  Polish  pa- 
triot, General  Haller,  began  to  come  out  of  France. 
It  was  planned  to  use  these  troops  in  conjunction  with 
Polish  troops  to  relieve  Lemberg.  The  operations 
were  planned  and  the  orders  issued,  when  the 
Supreme  Council  in  Paris  forbade  the  use  of  Haller 
troops  against  the  Ukrainians.  The  exact  reason 
for  this  ruling  on  the  part  of  the  Supreme  Council 
is  unknown,  but  it  was  supposed  to  be  due  to  the 
rights  of  small  nations  and  the  self-determination  of 
people.  There  is  about  as  much  self-determination 
of  peoples  in  Central  Europe  as  there  is  milk  in 
Vienna — and  there  is  very  Httle  milk  in  Vienna. 
The  Ukrainians,  it  is  generally  understood,  were  to 
be  allowed  a  small  amount  of  self-determination  so 
far  as  Lemberg  was  concerned,  though  Lemberg  is  a 

48 


POLAND  FOR   PATRIOTISM 

strictly  Polish  city  and  had  ejected  the  Ukrainians. 
They  weren't  to  be  entirely  self -determining,  but 
only  partially  self-determining. 

The  distinction  is  a  delicate  one.  They  could 
determine  themselves  unless  somebody  weaker  than 
themselves  could  stop  them.  If  the  Poles  could 
undetermine  them,  so  to  speak,  without  the  aid  of 
Haller  troops,  they  were  at  liberty  to  do  so,  but  they 
couldn't  use  Haller  troops,  who  were  highly  trained 
fighters.  In  other  words,  if  the  Poles  could  whip 
the  Ukrainians  with  one  hand  tied  behind  their 
backs,  they  could  go  as  far  as  they  liked.  Otherwise 
they  could  sit  and  twiddle  their  thumbs.  This  was 
the  ruling  of  that  august  and  omniscient  body,  the 
Supreme  Council. 

At  any  rate,  the  Poles  revised  their  plans.  The 
Haller  troops  were  not  included  in  them.  With  one 
hand  tied  behind  their  backs,  Pilsudski's  patriots 
sailed  into  the  Petlura  army,  relieved  Lemberg,  and 
were  just  about  to  eject  the  Ukrainians  from  Galicia 
amid  loud  huzzas  when  the  Supreme  Council  again 
interfered.  This  time  the  Supreme  Council  ordered 
the  Poles  to  stop  all  operations  against  the  Ukrain- 
ians. Having  first  told  the  Poles  that  they  could 
fight  if  they  didn't  use  their  full  strength,  they  now 
told  them  that  they  couldn't  fight  at  all.  The 
Supreme  Council  is  also  said  to  have  stated  that  the 
Ukrainians  had  been  ordered  to  stop  all  operations 
against  the  Poles  as  well.  The  Poles  obeyed  orders, 
ceased  operations,  and  withdrew  their  forces.  They 
started  peace  negotiations  with  the  Ukrainians. 
These  negotiations  were  concluded,  but  on  the 
morning  when   the   terms  were   to  go  into  effect 

49 


EUROPE'S    MORNING  AFTER 

the  Ukrainians  attacked  the  Poles  on  the  entire 
front. 

At  this  the  American  minister  to  Poland,  Hugh 
Gibson,  got  in  touch  with  the  Supreme  Council 
and  handed  it  a  few  hard  facts  in  unmistakable 
American  talk.  Mr.  Gibson  is  a  diplomat  of  the 
highest  order,  but  his  method  of  expression  is  often 
at  variance  with  the  accepted  ideas  of  diplomatic 
utterance;  for  he  says  what  he  means  in  the  fewest 
possible  words.  Having  been  apprised  of  the  situa- 
tion, the  Supreme  Council  reversed  its  decision  about 
Haller  troops.  The  Poles,  they  now  decided,  could 
use  Haller  troops  for  a  certain  distance.  They  could 
drive  the  Ukrainians  beyond  the  Spruzc  River,  but 
the  troops  themselves  couldn't  cross  the  river.  So 
the  Poles  brought  in  the  Haller  troops  and  chased  the 
Ukrainians  to  the  Spruzc  River  and  across  it. 
Operations  then  ceased,  with  the  Poles  on  one  side 
and  the  Ukrainians  on  the  other.  Half  a  loaf,  as 
the  poet  says,  is  better  than  no  vacation. 

The  Ukrainians,  of  course,  can  make  out  a  case 
which  calls  for  as  much  sympathy  as  the  Polish  case. 
Any  of  the  people  in  Central  Europe  can  make  out 
good  cases  for  themselves.  The  Peace  Conference 
has  left  things  in  such  a  mess  that  anyone  can  fish 
enough  pieces  out  of  the  mess  to  support  any  of  his 
arguments. 

When,  late  in  the  spring  of  1919,  the  Germans 
wished  to  refuse  to  sign  the  Peace  Treaty,  they 
showed  signs  of  taking  Posnania  by  force.  Con- 
sequently, the  Poles  had  to  rush  heavy  forces  to  the 
German  front.  At  this  juncture  Hugh  Gibson  again 
stepped  forward  with  a  hot  note  to  the  Germans,  in 

so 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

which  he  said  that  no  attack  by  the  Germans  would 
be  tolerated  by  the  Allies.  The  Germans  promptly 
sheered  off,  and  the  Poles  were  at  last  at  liberty  to 
devote  all  their  energies  to  the  Bolsheviks.  They 
piled  into  the  Bolsheviks  in  a  series  of  wholly  suc- 
cessful operations.  In  places  they  drove  them  back 
over  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles.  Their  troubles 
were  augmented,  however,  by  an  unfortunate  com- 
bination of  circumstances  in  the  southeast.  Here 
Denikin  came  over  from  southern  Russia  with  a 
force  of  Cossacks  and  what  not,  and  squashed  the 
Ukrainians  from  the  rear.  When  he  had  done  this 
the  Bolsheviks  came  down  on  his  rear  in  turn  and 
gave  him  a  dose  of  squash  which  completely  elimi- 
nated him  from  the  proceedings.  This  made  it  neces- 
sary for  the  Poles  to  extend  their  front  in  order  to 
take  care  of  the  victorious  Bolsheviks. 

In  January,  1919,  the  Polish  army  didn't  exist. 
In  January,  1920,  it  consisted  of  a  million  men. 
This  is  about  as  close  as  it  would  be  possible  to  get 
to  Mr.  William  Jennings  Bryan's  glowing  picture  of  a 
million  men  springing  to  arms  overnight. 

Pilsudski,  who  was  responsible  for  the  Polish  army 
and  for  its  many  successes  against  the  Bolshevik 
anny,  holds — or  held  last  January — the  office  of 
Chief  of  State.  In  the  patois  of  the  day  he  is  the 
Big  Noise  of  Poland.  When  people  talk  of  a 
military  dictator  for  the  country  they  are  referring 
to  Pilsudski.  His  only  military  rank  is  that  of 
major.  He  wears  no  gold  braid  and  no  decorations 
and  no  badges  of  office,  though  he  carries  the  biggest 
sword  in  all  Poland.  When  he  sits  down  and  holds 
his  sword  between  his  legs  it  sticks  up  higher  than 

51 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

his  head.  But  he  is  a  regular  Polish  patriot.  He 
needs  no  gauds  or  trappings  to  endear  him  to  Polish 
hearts.  He  could  even  get  along  without  a  sword. 
His  patriotism  and  achievements  are  sufficient  in 
themselves. 

The  Poles  have  been  getting  what  is  technically 
known  as  a  raw  deal  in  many  ways.  They  have  been 
the  only  consistently  successful  fighters  of  the 
Bolshevik  forces.  They  succeeded  where  Kolchak, 
Denikin,  Yudenitch,  and  several  minor  leaders  failed. 
They  have  been  fighting  under  terrible  conditions. 
They  have  gone  barefoot  and  half  naked  in  the 
winter.  Whole  companies  have  plowed  through  the 
snow  and  slush  and  ice  of  western  Russia  with  raw 
and  bleeding  feet.  The  lines  of  communication  have 
been  in  very  bad  shape,  so  that  it  has  been  most 
difficult  to  get  supplies  to  the  front.  They  have 
lived  on  starvation  rations,  but  they  have  plugged 
ahead  uncomplainingly.  When  the  Red  Cross  doc- 
tors under  Colonel  Chesley  entered  the  Polish 
military  area  last  spring  they  found  little  boys 
serving  in  the  army.  The  hospitals  had  no  anaesthet- 
ics, no  dressings,  no  doctors.  Soldiers  carried  no 
first-aid  packets.  The  hospitals  got  few  heavily 
wounded  men,  because  the  heavily  wounded  almost 
always  died.  The  soldiers  literally  lacked  every- 
thing. The  wounded  lay  for  days  on  the  floors  of 
cold  buildings  with  their  clothes  stiff  with  blood. 
The  typhus  was  very  bad,  and  the  dysentery  was 
worse.  But  the  spirit  and  the  morale  at  the  front 
were  and  still  are  wonderful. 

Yet  the  Germans  have  been  allowed  to  hold  dis- 
tricts  admittedly   Polish   until   the   Peace   Treaty 

52 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

goes  into  effect.  The  Poles  have  been  deprived  of 
their  historical  port  of  Dantzic  and  practically  cut 
off  from  the  sea.  They  have  been  repeatedly  ham- 
pered in  their  fighting  by  the  Supreme  Council. 
Poland  seems  to  have  drawn  nothing  but  soiled 
deuces,  when  she  deserves  only  aces  from  a  clean 
deck. 

A  Bolshevik  medical  report  filtered  into  the  Polish 
hnes  from  the  Bolshevik  army  last  winter.  This 
report  stated  that  there  were  fifteen  hundred  thou- 
sand cases  of  typhus  in  western  Russia.  How  many 
there  are  in  Poland  isn't  known  definitely,  but  the 
number  is  distressingly  large. 

Col.  H.  L.  Gilchrist,  of  the  medical  department 
of  our  army,  is  at  the  head  of  our  typhus  mission  to 
Poland.  He  has  been  through  settlement  after 
settlement  in  eastern  Poland  where  cases  of  typhus 
existed  in  every  house  and  where  in  some  houses 
entire  families  were  down  with  it.  He  visited  one 
house  where  the  father  and  three  children  were  lying 
on  heaps  of  straw  on  the  floor,  all  sick  with  typhus. 
The  mother  had  died  of  it  on  the  preceding  day. 
Their  only  food  was  a  basket  of  gnawed  potatoes 
and  beets.  An  interesting  feature  of  typhus  is  its 
habit  of  taking  heavy  toll  from  victims  who  are 
cultured  and  refined,  and  passing  comparatively 
lightly  over  the  people  who  have  had  no  advantages 
whatever. 

In  some  of  the  worst  districts  of  Poland  there  is 
one  doctor  to  every  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
people.  Almost  the  worst  pest  hole  in  Poland  is  the 
city  of  Tarnopol,  in  Galicia.  There  is  a  quarantine 
station    there.     In    December,     1919,    there    were 

53 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

twelve  doctors  at  this  station,  and  one  of  them — 
Lieut. -Col.  Edward  Register — was  an  American. 
Early  in  January,  1920,  two  doctors  out  of  the  twelve 
were  left.  The  others,  including  Colonel  Register, 
had  died  of  typhus.  There  is  only  one  treatment 
for  typhus,  and  that  is  constant  care;  so  when 
the  news  of  Register's  illness  reached  Warsaw  an 
American  Red  Cross  nurse — Miss  Susan  Rosensteil, 
of  Freeport,  Illinois — took  the  night  train  for  Tar- 
nopol  to  nurse  the  case,  knowing  that  she  had  about 
one  chance  in  a  thousand  of  coming  back  alive.  I 
mention  this  because  I  want  the  people  at  home  to 
know  the  sort  of  nerve  that  our  women  can  show. 
To  fight  an  enemy  that  can  be  seen  is  no  easy  task; 
but  it's  easier  than  fighting  the  horrors  of  a  disease 
that  comes  from  vermin  and  filth  and  darkness,  and 
against  which  one  can  have  no  protection  except 
his  private  God  of  Luck. 

Trains  come  into  Warsaw  from  Vilna,  which  is 
out  to  the  northeast  in  the  military  area,  with 
eighteen  to  twenty-two  people  in  a  compartment. 
I  have  seen  twenty-two  people  crammed  into  a 
compartment.  Colonel  Gilchrist  has  seen  thirty 
and  thirty-two  people  in  one.  As  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  my  mind  refuses  to  conceive  of  more  than 
twenty-two  people  in  a  compartment ;  but  if  Colonel 
Gilchrist  says  he  has  seen  it  he  has  unquestionably 
done  so.  These  compartments  usually  have  typhus 
cases  in  them.  Typhus,  as  I  have  said  before,  is 
contracted  only  from  the  bite  of  the  typhus  louse. 
Wherever  there  are  typhus  cases  there  are  usually 
typhus  lice.  The  Poles  attack  typhus  by  disinfect- 
ing the  trains.  The  third-  and  fourth-class  cars,  which 

54 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

have  no  cushions,  have  steam  hosed  into  them  at  an 
eighty-pound  pressure,  so  that  the  Hoe  are  nicely 
cooked.  The  first-  and  second-class  cars,  which  have 
cushions  which  the  steam  would  damage,  are  given 
a  shot  of  hydrocyanide  gas.  Thus  the  lice  are 
gassed  and  die  in  violent  convulsions,  though  for  the 
life  of  me,  I  cannot  understand  why  the  stench  in  a 
Polish  railway  compartment  which  has  held  twenty- 
two  people  for  ten  or  fifteen  hours  doesn't  asphyxiate 
a  louse  as  readily  as  hydrocyanide  gas. 

Unfortunately,  plenty  of  people  run  round  the 
streets  with  lice  in  their  clothes,  and  the  refugees 
who  are  streaming  steadily  back  into  Poland  from 
Russia  are  covered  with  them.  So  this  method  of 
attacking  typhus  is  like  a  man's  trying  to  rid  his 
house  of  flies  without  putting  screens  on  the  windows. 
Colonel  Gilchrist  plans  to  set  up  a  strict  quarantine 
along  the  eastern  border.  He  will  install  four  de- 
lousing  plants  as  a  first  line  of  defense;  and  ten 
miles  behind  the  first  line  there  will  be  a  second  line. 
Everyone  who  comes  into  the  country  will  have  to 
run  the  gantlet,  and  this  will  amount  to  screening 
the  windows. 

I  reached  Warsaw  a  few  days  after  Paderewski 
had  finally  succeeded  in  resigning  as  President  of  the 
Council  of  Ministers.  He  resigned  because  he  was 
unable  to  control  a  majority  of  votes  in  the  Polish 
Diet,  or  Congress,  and  because  he  was  consequently 
unable  to  institute  the  measures  which  he  thought 
Poland  needed.  He  resigned  several  times,  in  fact, 
but  only  his  last  attempt  was  successful.  For  some 
little  time  he  carried  his  resignation  with  him  wher- 
ever he  went,  just  as  he  carried  his  watch  and  his 

55 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

cigarette  case.  It  was  part  of  his  daily  costume. 
After  his  first  resignation  three  of  tlie  twelve  political 
parties  represented  in  the  Diet  came  to  him  and 
urged  him  to  reconsider  his  resignation.  In  the 
future,  they  assured  him,  he  could  always  rely  on 
their  votes.  Hitherto  they  had  been  against  him, 
but  now  they  would  vote  with  him.  So  Paderewski 
reconsidered  his  resignation.  Twenty -four  hours  later 
the  representatives  of  these  same  three  parties  came 
to  him  again  and  said  that  they  had  changed  their 
minds — that  they  couldn't  vote  with  him,  after  all. 

Americans  in  Warsaw  frequently  held  pools  on  the 
leanings  of  the  political  parties.  The  man  naming 
the  correct  affiliations  of  the  largest  number  of 
parties  on  a  given  day  would  win  the  pool.  Pools 
were  held  every  day  because  the  parties  changed 
every  day.  It  was  a  difficult  sport,  for  the  parties 
themselves  rarely  knew  how  they  stood.  On  one 
day,  for  example,  the  newspapers  would  say,  "The 
National  People's  Party  has  decided  to  support 
Paderewski."  On  the  following  day  the  papers 
would  appear  with  the  statement,  "The  National 
People's  Party  met  at  three  o'clock  and  decided  to 
withdraw  its  support  from  Paderewski."  On  the 
third  day  the  newspapers  would  carry  an  interview 
with  the  leader  of  the  National  People's  Party  in 
which  he  would  declare  firmly  that  his  party  had 
never  at  any  time  arrived  at  a  decision  concerning 
whom  it  would  support.  When  reporters  inter- 
viewed Polish  party  leaders  they  never  could  tell 
how  their  parties  were  leaning  that  day  until  they 
had  attended  the  afternoon  meetings. 

So  Paderewski  resigned  as  President  of  the  Council 

56 


POLAND   FOR  PATRIOTISM 

of  Ministers.  But  he  lost  neither  his  influence  nor 
his  popularity  in  Poland.  The  Poles,  being  new  at 
the  game,  didn't  quite  know  what  they  wanted. 
They  felt,  many  of  them,  that  Paderewski  was  a 
dreamer;  they  said  that  they  wanted  a  more 
practical  man.  They  rather  resented  the  fact  that 
he  had  made  so  much  money  in  America  while  other 
Polish  patriots  stayed  at  home  and  devoted  their 
energies  to  working  for  Poland.  But  they  were 
united  in  the  knowledge  that  he  was  a  great  patriot ; 
those  who  knew  said  that  Paderewski 's  ideas  and 
plans  would  be  carried  out,  even  though  he  was  no 
longer  Minister  President,  On  New  Year's  Day 
there  was  a  demonstration  for  Paderewski  in  the 
square  in  front  of  the  Bristol  Hotel,  where  he  was 
living.  He  had  only  recently  resigned.  Yet  twenty 
thousand  people  assembled  in  the  square  and  stood 
there  for  three  hours  in  a  cold  drizzle,  waiting  for  him 
to  come  out  and  speak  to  them.  The  band  played 
the  Polish  national  hymn  every  few  minutes,  and 
whenever  this  happened  the  twenty  thousand  bared 
their  heads  to  the  rain.  Two  men  tried  to  sell 
caricatures  of  Paderewski.  The  crowd  beat  them  so 
badly  that  both  of  them  had  to  be  taken  to  the 
hospital. 

Paderewski  was  succeeded  as  President  of  the 
Council  of  Ministers  by  M.  Skulski,  a  tall,  husky, 
level-eyed,  hard-headed  man  of  about  thirty -five. 
He  took  an  engineering  degree  from  Karlsruhe 
University,  and  was  the  head  of  an  engineering  firm 
in  the  city  of  Lodz.  Most  Americans  probably 
never  heard  of  Lodz,  but  it  is — or  was  before  the 
lack  of  raw  materials  closed  so  many  factories — an 

57 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

enormous  industrial  city.  The  cotton  and  woolen 
products  of  Lodz  competed  with  German  products 
in  Constantinople,  with  Austrian  products  in  the 
Balkans.  Commercial  travelers  from  Lodz  were  to 
be  found  in  Siberia,  China,  Persia,  Asia  Minor,  Spain, 
and  South  Africa. 

Skulski  became  the  President  of  the  city  of  Lodz, 
which  is  no  mean  job.  During  the  German  occupa- 
tion of  Poland  he  edited  two  papers  which  con- 
stantly pleaded  the  cause  of  the  Allies,  These  papers 
were  thorns  in  the  German  flesh;  and  if  the  Ger- 
mans had  ever  been  able  to  prove  his  connection 
with  the  papers  they'd  have  shot  him.  When  he  was 
elected  to  the  Diet  from  Lodz  he  set  out  to  get  the 
support  of  a  majority  of  the  members.  Paderewski 
has  always  recognized  his  ability,  and  twice  wished 
him  to  join  the  cabinet — once,  when  the  cabinet 
was  first  formed,  as  the  Minister  of  Interior  Affairs, 
and  again,  just  before  his  resignation,  as  Vice 
President  of  the  Council.  Skulski,  just  after  he  had 
taken  office,  told  me  that  he  had  233  members  of 
the  Diet  solidly  behind  him  out  of  a  total  member- 
ship of  395,  but  he  admitted  that  he  couldn't  be  sure 
of  a  fixed  majority  on  all  questions.  In  other  words, 
he  had  them,  only  he  didn't. 

Skulski  laughed  at  the  idea  of  Bolshevism  obtain- 
ing a  foothold  in  Poland.  Eighty  per  cent  of  the 
Polish  people,  he  said,  were  peasants  and  had 
proved  their  unconquerable  patriotism  by  the  man- 
ner in  which  they  had  organized  peasant  troops  to 
fight  against  the  Bolsheviks,  purchasing  their  own 
equipment  and  serving  without  pay.  The  Russian 
peasants  are  passive,  but  the  Polish  peasants  aren't. 

58 


POLAND  FOR  PATRIOTISM 

Bolshevik  delegations  frequently  come  into  the 
Polish  lines  to  spread  Bolshevik  doctrines,  and  are 
usually  rewarded  for  their  pains  by  being  shot  by 
the  Polish  soldiers  without  orders.  One  regiment 
of  Polish  troops,  according  to  information  which 
Skulski  had  just  received,  had  put  twelve  Bolshevik 
regiments  to  rout. 

Skulski  made  a  strong  plea  for  American  help  and 
the  investment  of  American  capital.  Poland's 
greatest  needs,  he  said,  were  rolling  stock  and  en- 
gines for  her  railroads,  food  for  her  people,  and 
capital  for  investment  in  her  natural  resources. 
The  value  of  the  Polish  mark  can  be  raised  only  by 
the  export  of  Polish  goods  to  other  countries — 
textiles  and  chemicals,  raw  materials,  petroleum,  and, 
especially,  wood.  Poland  has  an  unlimited  supply 
of  wood,  and  she  is  anxious  for  its  exploitation  by 
foreign  capital.  "Many  American,  British,  and 
Italian  companies,"  said  Skulski,  "have  already  ap- 
plied to  us  for  concessions  in  our  eastern  timberlands ; 
and  we  have  instructed  the  authorities  to  assist  the 
representatives  of  these  companies  in  every  way. 
We  are  willing  to  allow  foreign  companies  as  much 
land  as  they  want  for  exploitation  purposes  for  as 
long  a  time  as  they  may  need  it.  We  are  anxious  to 
have  foreign  capital — American  in  particular — in- 
vested in  our  vast  farm  lands.  By  the  importation 
into  Poland  of  steam  or  motor  plows,  tractors,  and 
other  agricultural  machines,  enormous  enterprises 
could  be  started.  We  have  over  seventy -five  million 
acres  of  unoccupied  farm  lands  which  could  be  cul- 
tivated with  great  advantage  to  Poland  as  well  as 
to  the  cultivators." 

5  59 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Paderewski  was  occupying  the  bridal  suite — or  at 
any  rate  it  looked  like  the  bridal  suite — on  the  first 
floor  of  the  Hotel  Bristol.  This  is  one  of  the  eighteen 
million  Hotel  Bristols  in  Europe.  Every  city,  town, 
and  village  has  a  Hotel  Bristol,  and  some  of  the 
cities  are  so  enamored  of  the  name  that  they  have 
Old  Bristols  and  New  Bristols;  First,  Second,  and 
Third  Bristols;  Small  and  Large  Bristols.  One  of  the 
few  differentiations  they  don't  use  is  Clean  Bristol 
and  Dirty  Bristol — probably  because  not  a  great 
many  of  them  are  clean.  I  would  suggest  that  some 
of  the  European  cities  differentiate  their  Bristol 
Hotels  by  calling  them  the  Cold  Bristol  and  the 
Colder  Bristol;  the  Breadless  Bristol  and  the  Meat- 
less Bristol;  the  Bathless  Bristol  and  the  Heatless 
Bristol  and  even  the  Roomless  Bristol.  All  this  would 
be  a  great  help  to  Americans  who  are  foolish  enough 
to  try  to  travel  in  Europe  in  the  near  future,  when  it 
becomes  necessary  for  them  to  wire  ahead  for  rooms. 

At  any  rate,  Paderewski  was  occupying  the  bridal 
suite  of  the  Hotel  Bristol.  Whenever  he  emerged 
and  passed  through  the  lobby  everybody  removed  his 
hat  and  bowed  low,  and  all  the  army  officers  kicked 
their  sabers  out  from  between  their  legs  and  cracked 
their  heels  together  in  token  of  respect.  Anybody 
who  tries  to  say  that  Paderewski  hasn't  the  love  and 
the  admiration  of  the  entire  Polish  nation  is  talking 
through  his  hat  as  well  as  through  his  overcoat  and 
his  galoshes. 

He  had  a  few  words  to  say  about  Bolshevism  and 
about  the  gratitude  of  Poland  for  American  help, 
while  his  parrot  hung  from  the  top  of  its  cage  and 
swore  quietly  but  fluently  in  choice  Polish. 

60 


POLAND   FOR   PATRIOTISM 

"Poland,"  said  Paderewski,  "has  done  wonder- 
fully well  in  the  short  time  she  has  been  at  it;  and 
those  who  judge  our  government  by  American 
standards  are  doing  us  an  injustice.  The  nation 
has  been  functioning  for  only  a  year;  our  people 
are  suffering  from  five  years  of  war  and  invasion  and 
hunger  and  disease;  all  of  our  industries  have  been 
brought  to  a  standstill.  Yet  Poland  has  a  govern- 
ment which  governs  and  an  army  which  fights.  We 
realize  the  dangers  of  Bolshevism  here ;  for  Germany 
is  supplying  the  Bolsheviks  with  money  and  men, 
and  the  Bolsheviks  themselves  are  pounding  at  our 
gates.  They  are  flooding  the  country  with  posters 
which  set  forth  the  glories  of  Bolshevism;  they 
attack  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  Capitalistic 
America  through  these  posters.  Magazines  printed 
in  alien  tongues  in  America  have  reached  Poland 
filled  with  Bolshevik  propaganda,  and  we  have  taken 
them  from  the  mails.  The  people  of  America  don't 
realize  the  dangers  which  may  come  to  them  from 
Bolshevism  or  the  sources  from  which  Bolshevism 
all  over  the  world  is  receiving  its  greatest  aid.  Amer- 
icans have  insufficient  imagination.  They  refuse  to 
see  a  danger  until  it  becomes  a  concrete  menace — 
something  that  can  be  physically  met  and  over- 
come. American  publications  have  failed  to  dis- 
cover or  have  refused  to  print  the  truth  about 
Bolshevism.  They  have  recognized  its  outward 
manifestations,  but  not  the  forces  behind  it.  But 
there  will  come  a  time  in  the  near  future  when  these 
forces  must  be  universally  recognized." 

Paderewski  asked  particularly  that  the  heartfelt 
thanks  of  Poland  be  conveyed  to  America  for  the 

6i 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

great  help  which  America  has  given.  Throughout 
the  nation,  he  said,  there  was  a  deep  and  sincere 
feeling  of  gratitude  for  all  that  America  has  done. 
He  followed  me  out  into  the  hall,  beyond  the  range 
of  the  quiet  but  malignant  profanity  of  the  parrot, 
and  repeated  this  statement  three  times.  He 
wanted  to  be  very  sure  that  the  American  nation 
gets  an  inkling  of  Poland's  gratitude. 

One  can  find  many  things  at  which  to  smile  in 
Poland.  One  can  get  a  good  laugh  out  of  the 
Polish  nobility.  They  claim  that  Poland  is  a  very 
democratic  country  because  one  out  of  every  ten 
people  in  Poland  belongs  to  a  noble  family.  One 
cannot  toss  a  brick  into  any  Polish  gathering  without 
hitting  a  count.  One  can  worry  a  smile  out  of  the 
Polish  waiters,  who  insist  on  wearing  sack  suits  to 
show  their  democracy.  One  can  snicker  a  bit  at 
Polish  opera,  which  is  gloomy  and  likes  to  depict 
people  dying  resignedly  in  the  snow  for  the  mere 
gloomy  joy  of  dying.  One  has  to  laugh  a  little  and 
even  swear  a  little  at  the  inefficiency  and  impractical- 
ity  of  the  Poles.  But  one  cannot  get  any  mirth  out 
of  their  hunger  and  their  steadfastness  and  their 
intense  patriotism. 

You  can  call  me  pro-Pole  if  you  like.  I'm  pro- 
anybody  who  fights  a  clean  fight  in  a  righteous  cause 
against  overwhelming  odds.  The  Poles  answer  to 
that  description,  and  it's  a  pretty  good  basis  on 
which  to  rest  a  case. 


II 

HUSKS 

AUSTRIA  is  a  small  peanut  of  a  country  about 
t  twice  as  large  as  Switzerland.  It  used  to  be  a 
large,  magnificent  country — a  K.  u.  K.  country,  to 
quote  the  Austrians,  K.  u.  K.  meaning  Kaiserlich 
und  Koniglich,  or  Imperial  and  Royal.  It  was  about 
as  K.  u.  K.  as  any  reasonable  emperor  could  desire; 
for  at  the  top  it  was  wedged  up  into  Germany  and 
Russia,  and  swept  grandly  down  past  Switzerland 
and  Italy  and  squatted  heavily  on  the  Balkan 
Peninsula.  It  was  the  largest  and  most  K.  u.  K. 
agglomeration  of  real  estate  in  all  Europe,  barring 
only  Imperial  Russia.  Russia  was  a  larger  parcel 
of  land,  but  a  lot  of  it  was  marshland.  It  wasn't 
nearly  so  K.  u.  K.  as  Austria — or  more  properly 
Austria-Hungary.  It  didn't  support  so  many  palaces 
and  Hojs  and  Schlosses  and  royal  retainers  and 
K.  u.  K.  kinglets  and  princes  and  grand  dukes  and 
royal  bums  as  Austria  did. 

Austria  was  rich.  She  had  great  industries  and 
the  raw  materials  for  them,  and  the  coal  and  the 
oil  that  they  needed.  She  had  a  population  of 
55,000,000;  and  among  the  55,000,000  there  were 
as  many  different  breeds  of  people  as  there  were 
different  varieties  of  postage  stamps  in  one  of  those 

63 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

packages  that  used  to  be  advertised  as  "10,000 
stamps,  all  different:  25  cents."  On  every  Austrian 
bank  note  the  value  had  to  be  printed  in  eight  dif- 
ferent languages.  Austria  had  everything — before 
the  war. 

That,  however,  was  before  the  war.  At  the  pres- 
ent time,  due  to  the  rulings  of  aix  ill-advised  body  of 
men  known  as  the  Peace  Conference,  Austria  is  a 
small,  shriveled  wisp  of  a  country.  She  has  lost 
her  farm  lands  and  her  mineral  lands ;  she  has  lost 
her  industries  and  her  seaports ;  she  has  lost  her  coal 
and  her  oil  and  the  purchasing  power  of  her  money ; 
she  has  lost  every  resource  which  a  modern  state 
must  have  in  order  to  exist.  Instead  of  her  former 
55,000,000  inhabitants  she  has  only  6,500,000 — less 
than  one  eighth  of  her  former  population.  The 
Peace  Conference  cut  off  a  slice  of  Austria  and  gave 
it  to  Poland — and  Poland  is  fighting  with  Czecho- 
slovakia over  part  of  that  slice.  The  Peace  Con- 
ference hacked  off  a  huge  gob  and  called  it  Czecho- 
slovakia; and  the  Czechs  and  the  Slovaks  are 
quarreling  between  themselves,  while  the  Czechs 
and  the  Hungarians  are  on  the  verge  of  going  to  the 
mat  over  part  of  Slovakia.  The  Peace  Conference 
slashed  off  another  slice  and  gave  it  to  Rumania, 
and  Hungary  and  Rumania  are  on  the  verge  of 
fighting  over  it.  She  cut  off  a  final  great  gob,  which 
is  now  part  of  Jugoslavia.  The  Peace  Conference 
has  acted  like  a  fatuous  butcher  cutting  up  a  slab 
of  meat  for  some  friends;  it  cut  off  here  and  it  cut 
off  there,  tossing  the  untrimmed  chunks  to  this  one 
and  to  that;  and  at  the  end  it  had  a  disagreeable 
little  piece  of  gristle  left,  and  that  piece  was  tossed 

64 


HUSKS 

to  the  dogs.  The  piece  of  gristle  is  Austria,  and  the 
dogs  to  whom  the  Peace  Conference  threw  it  are  the 
ravening  beasts,  Hunger  and  Cold  and  Despair. 

Austria  is  a  husk  of  a  country — an  empty  shell. 
The  nation  itself  is  nothing  but  an  unnatural 
boundary  line  surrounding  a  mass  of  land  insuf- 
ficiently large  to  feed  its  people,  and  without  suf- 
ficient industries  to  support  them.  And  Vienna, 
which  with  her  2,250,000  people  is  the  greatest  part 
of  Austria,  is  an  empty  shell  as  well.  The  palaces 
of  Vienna,  which  housed  the  diseased  but  royal 
breed  that  led  Austria  into  the  war  and  kept  her 
there,  are  empty  except  for  American  feeding 
stations,  while  their  erstwhile  occupants  strut  and 
blow  in  Swiss  resorts  amid  their  little  pomps  and 
gauds.  The  stores  and  shops  of  Vienna,  renowned 
through  Europe  for  their  beautiful  things,  are 
stripped  and  gutted.  The  banks  of  Vienna  have 
plenty  of  money,  but  it's  good  for  nothing — or  next 
to  nothing.  And  the  people  of  Vienna  are  empty, 
too — empty  of  pride  and  empty  of  hope  and  empty 
of  fighting  spirit  and  empty  of  food.  They're 
especially  empty  of  food.  Quite  by  chance  one  day 
I  stumbled  into  the  home  of  Rosalie  Amsuss,  aged 
eleven,  and  watched  her  dying  of  starvation.  It  was 
a  very  unpleasant  spectacle.  I  will  tell  you  all 
about  it  in  another  place.  There  are  plenty  of 
Rosalie  Amsusses  in  Vienna.  The  stories  that  you 
read  about  starvation  in  Vienna  are  quite  true. 
Austria  is  a  nation  of  emptiness — a  husk  of  a  nation 
and  a  nation  of  husks. 

I  saw  scores  of  letters  from  Americans  in  the 
United  States  to  Americans  in  Vienna  while  I  was 

65 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

there,  and  every  letter  contained  such  questions  as : 
"Are  the  stories  about  starving  people  in  Vienna 
true?"  or:  "The  papers  say  that  the  people  in 
Vienna  are  starving,  but  they  seem  to  keep  on  living. 
What's  the  truth  of  it?"  or:  "Are  conditions  in 
Vienna  as  bad  as  they  say?  I  suppose  most  of  it  is 
nothing  but  propaganda  or  newspaper  talk." 

I  answer  those  questions  here  as  the  Americans 
in  Vienna  answered  the  letters: 

The  stories  are  true.  Conditions  are  exactly  as 
bad  as  they  say,  and  they  only  grow  worse  with  the 
passage  of  the  weeks;  almost  none  of  it  is  either 
propaganda  or  what  the  thoughtless  sometimes  call 
newspaper  talk,  for  the  misery  of  the  situation  in 
Vienna  is  almost  impossible  to  exaggerate. 

Central  Europe  is  the  greatest  political,  social, 
and  economic  mess,  with  the  single  exception  of 
Bolshevik  Russia,  that  any  man  now  living  has  ever 
seen.  The  situation  is  so  fantastic  and  so  incredible 
that  any  person  who  attempts  to  tell  even  a  small 
part  of  it  will  automatically  be  doubted  by  all 
persons  accustomed  to  a  sane  and  ordered  existence. 
What  wonder  that  every  American  in  Central  Europe, 
when  the  League  of  Nations  in  its  present  form  is 
mentioned,  makes  flapping  motions  with  his  hands 
significant  of  repugnance?  Many  a  good  American 
in  the  United  States  who  is  all  in  favor  of  America 
entering  the  League  as  it  stands  will,  I  have  no 
doubt,  accuse  me  of  being  pro-German  and  pro- 
Bolshevik  because  of  what  I  say  against  it.  I  am 
a  reporter,  however,  and  not  a  statesman  or  a  judge. 
I  am  reporting  the  sentiment  which  I  found  among 
Americans  in  Central  Europe.    These  men  are  good 

66 


HUSKS 

Americans  and  many  of  them  came  into  Central 
Europe  enthusiastically  in  favor  of  the  League. 
They  are  in  favor  of  it  no  longer.  Somewhere  in 
Central  Europe  there  may  be  Americans  who  favor 
the  entry  of  the  United  States  into  the  League,  but 
I  missed  them.  "A  league  of  nations  is  all  right," 
the  Americans  say;  "such  a  thing  ought  to  exist, 
and  America  ought  to  be  in  it.  But  not  in  this 
League!     No  indeed!     Not  this  one!" 

The  Peace  Conference  has  stripped  Austria  of  every- 
thing which  she  needs  in  order  to  exist.  Far  harder 
terms,  financially  and  territorially,  have  been  im- 
posed on  Austria  than  on  Germany.  She  can't  buy 
coal,  she  can't  buy  food,  she  can't  buy  raw  materials. 
Her  neighbors,  who  hate  her  bitterly  for  her  past 
sins,  will  give  her  nothing  and  will  sell  her  next 
to  nothing.  She  is  cold  and  starved  and  helpless 
and  hopeless.  Her  people  want  nothing  but  food 
to  cook  and  fire  on  which  to  cook  it. 

The  present-day  Austria,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  small 
peanut  of  a  country.  The  contour  of  Ireland,  I 
believe,  is  vaguely  familiar  to  most  people.  If  a 
giant  steam  roller  were  to  roll  up  on  Ireland's  lower 
end  and  flatten  it  out  a  bit,  her  size  and  appearance 
would  closely  approach  Austria's  at  the  present  time. 
Austria's  flattened  end  is  wedged  between  Germany 
and  Italy,  and  the  rounded  end  is  held  down  at  the 
top  by  Czechoslovakia,  pushed  in  on  the  front  by 
Hungary,  and  jacked  up  by  Jugoslavia. 

The  fiat  end  is  the  Austrian  Tyrol,  where  American 
tourists  used  to  go  to  exclaim  in  wonder  at  the 
magnificent  mountains  worn  by  the  landscape  and 
the  remarkable  hats  worn  by  the  Tyroleans.    These 

67 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

hats  had  large  shaving  brushes  stuck  in  the  bands 
in  back,  and  were  too  kilhng  for  words.  The  hats 
still  exist,  and  so  do  the  mountains;  and  in  the 
mountainous  sections  there  is  very  little  raised  except 
the  nimble  chamois,  a  goatlike  creature  whose  beard 
supplies  the  shaving-brush  decoration  for  the  Ty- 
rolean hat.  There  is  no  agriculture  to  speak  of. 
The  rest  of  Austria  is  also  very  rugged  and  hilly, 
so  that  the  farms  are  neither  numerous,  large,  nor 
fertile.  Even  when  all  the  farms  of  Austria  are 
thoroughly  fertilized  and  producing  at  pre-war  speed, 
they  produce  only  enough  to  feed  30  per  cent  of  her 
present  population.  In  other  words,  they  produce 
only  a  little  more  than  enough  to  feed  the  people 
who  live  in  the  country  districts.  In  the  past, 
Austria  has  manufactured  a  wide  variety  of  goods, 
sold  them,  and  purchased  food  for  the  remaining 
70  per  cent  of  her  population  with  a  part  of  the 
proceeds.  To-day  the  farms  of  Austria  are  produc- 
ing even  less  than  usual.  Most  of  the  few  factories 
that  have  not  been  given  to  Czechoslovakia  are  shut 
down,  for  she  has  neither  fuel  nor  raw  material. 

Consequently,  Austria  has  no  goods  to  sell  outside. 
She  is  earning  nothing,  and  she  has  few  resources; 
so  she  can  buy  nothing.  Outside  nations  don't 
want  to  accept  her  money,  for  it  is  worthless. 
They  are  only  willing  to  barter  with  her,  and  Austria 
has  next  to  nothing  with  which  to  barter.  There- 
fore the  only  people  in  Austria  who  are  getting 
enough  to  eat  are  the  people  who  are  living  in  the 
country.  They  are  getting  just  enough.  The  people 
in  the  cities  are  getting  what  the  government  can 
buy  for  them  in  outside  countries  and  sell  to  them  at 

68 


HUSKS 

a  fairly  reasonable  rate,  or  what  the  Americans  send 
them.  When  the  newspapers  pubHsh  the  statement 
that  Vienna  has  enough  bread  to  last  until  April  17th, 
it  means  that  the  amount  of  flour  which  outside 
nations  have  consented  to  sell  to  Vienna  will  give 
out  on  April  17th,  and  that  unless  the  government 
has  succeeded  in  scratching  up  a  supply  somewhere 
before  that  time  the  people  will  be  unable  to  have 
any  bread  whatever.  It  does  not  mean  that  abso- 
lutely everyone  will  be  breadless.  Persons  who  have 
a  great  deal  of  money  will  still  be  able  to  get  food. 
They  won't  be  able  to  get  the  things  they  want,  but 
they  will  be  able  to  get  enough  to  fill  their  stomachs. 
At  no  time  can  they,  even  with  a  lot  of  money,  get 
enough  fats  to  keep  themselves  from  feeUng  hungry 
a  short  time  after  they've  eaten,  but  they  can  keep 
from  suffering.  This  applies  only  to  people  with  a 
great  deal  of  money.  If  the  bread  supply  is  ex- 
hausted on  April  17th,  the  normal  population  gets 
no  bread  on  April  i8th.  It  can  neither  find  nor 
afford  the  bread  which  is  sold  secretly. 

All  the  capitals  of  Central  Europe,  in  spite  of 
their  misery,  look  normal.  Berlin,  Warsaw,  Vienna, 
Prague,  Budapest — all  of  them  are  big,  roaring, 
magnificent  cities  with  crowded  streets  and  honking 
taxicabs  and  shops  and  cabarets  and  theaters.  On 
arriving  in  Vienna  one  rather  expects  to  see  people 
dying  in  the  middle  of  the  street-car  tracks  for  lack 
of  food.  One  expects  to  see  the  palaces  crumbling 
in  ruins  and  to  see  grass  growing  between  the  cobbles 
and  to  hear  the  low  moaning  of  the  starving  children. 

One  finds  nothing  of  the  sort.  Vienna  wears  a 
gay  front.     Her  women,  as  always,  are  the  most 

69 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

beautiful  in  Europe.  Her  men  go  briskly  about  their 
business,  and  their  appearance  is  normal;  there's 
none  of  that  universal  pallor  that  one  expects. 
The  shop  windows  glitter  with  jewels  or  blaze  with 
paintings  or  silks,  or  foam — as  the  saying  goes — 
with  lingerie.  The  palaces  are  as  massive  and  stately 
and  imposing  as  ever.  The  streets,  it  is  true,  are 
full  of  dust  and  dirt  and  paper  scraps ;  and  there  are 
hundreds  of  beggars  importuning  the  passer-by — 
war  cripples  in  the  indescribably  shoddy  Austrian 
uniform;  scraps  and  wrecks  and  husks  of  men  who 
scramble  on  the  sidewalks  for  the  stubbiest  of 
cigarette  butts.  But  in  order  to  see  the  true 
Vienna  one  must  go  into  the  shops  and  note  the 
empty  shelves  and  show  cases;  one  must  look 
closely  at  the  palaces  to  see  that  the  windows  are 
unwashed  and  the  rooms  untenanted;  one  must 
go  into  the  apartment  houses  to  find  once  wealthy 
people  living  in  the  direst  poverty,  and  to  find  them 
dying  of  starvation. 

To  get  an  idea  of  Vienna  as  it  really  is  one  should 
see  it  for  the  first  time  at  night.  Then  it  is  dark 
and  dismal,  cheerless  and  ghastly.  The  streets  are 
lighted  by  the  weakest  of  gas  lights  or  electric  lamps, 
separated  by  wide  distances.  Except  for  a  few 
streets  in  the  very  center  of  this  great  city  of  two 
and  a  quarter  million  people,  the  thoroughfares  are 
almost  deserted  when  night  has  fallen.  Even  on 
the  few  populous  streets  the  wayfarers  are  dim 
shapes  whose  movements  seem  stealthy  and  furtive. 
The  hotel  entrances  and  lobbies  are  dark  caves. 
Vienna  after  dark  looks  like  what  it  is — a  sick  city, 
a  dying  city,  a  city  of  abject  despair. 

70 


HUSKS 

In  the  restaurants  and  cafes — there  is  a  wide  dif- 
ference between  a  restaurant  and  a  caf6  in  Vienna — 
the  electric  lights  are  shut  off  at  eight  o'clock  and  are 
replaced  by  a  few  carbide  lights,  which  give  off  a 
ghastly  greenish-yellow  glare.  No  street  cars  run 
after  half  past  eight  at  night.  The  theaters  begin 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  or  half  past  five, 
and  eight  o'clock  sees  their  audiences  emptying  into 
the  darkened  streets.  Long-winded  German  operas 
like  "Tannhauser"  or  "Gotterdammerung,"  in 
which  pairs  of  fat  singers  must  sing  into  each  other's 
faces  endlessly,  begin  as  early  as  four  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon.  In  January,  when  I  arrived  in  Vienna, 
there  was  a  period  covering  several  days  during 
which,  because  of  lack  of  coal,  no  passenger  trains 
ran,  no  street  cars,  no  elevators,  no  theaters,  no 
opera,  no  cabarets.  Every  shop  pulled  down  its 
shutters  and  locked  its  doors  at  dusk  because  no 
electricity  could  be  burned.  Vienna  was  the  most 
desolate  city  I  have  ever  seen. 

At  the  bottom  of  all  the  trouble  are  lack  of  coal 
and  lack  of  raw  material.  With  coal  and  with  raw 
material  Vienna  could  eventually  produce  enough 
goods  for  export,  so  that  she  wouldn't  have  to  be 
dependent  on  charity  for  her  food.  Without  coal 
and  without  raw  material  Austria  must  be  a  beggar 
nation  until  she  is  permitted  to  join  her  fortunes 
with  those  of  another  nation  that  has  the  things 
which  she  lacks.  Alone  she  cannot  exist;  that  is 
an  absolute,  an  accepted,  and  an  incontrovertible 
fact.  There  are  four  countries  that  she  could  join: 
Germany,  Czechoslovakia,  Hungary,  and  Jugo- 
slavia;  Czechoslovakia,  which  used  to  be  a  part  of 

71 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Austria-Hungary,  hates  her  for  the  years  of  oppres- 
sion at  Austrian  hands.  Jugoslavia  hates  her  for 
the  same  reason — and  a  Central  Europe  hate  is  one 
of  the  most  persistent  and  acrimonious  hates  that 
ever  entered  the  hating  business.  Hungary  has 
been  stripped  of  her  choicest  possessions  and  is 
raving  wildly  to  become  a  monarchy.  The  govern- 
ing class  in  Austria,  being  Social  Democrats — and 
Social  Democracy  is  so  close  to  a  dictatorship  of  the 
working  classes  that  a  knife  blade  can  scarcely  be 
pried  between  them — is  fearful  of  tying  up  with 
Hungary,  because  if  it  had  a  monarchy  wished  on 
it  the  working  classes  would  not  continue  to  be  the 
ruling  classes  to  any  noticeable  extent.  Germany, 
however,  is  also  Social  Democratic,  and  Germany 
is  the  country  which  Austria  wants  to  join.  The 
AlHes,  with  the  exception  of  France,  are  in  favor  of 
allowing  them  to  join.  France,  mindful  of  Ger- 
many's determination  to  crush  her  in  the  not  distant 
future,  is  determined  to  prevent  any  move  which 
might  eventually  tend  to  strengthen  Germany.  The 
situation  is  complicated  by  the  fact  that  there  are 
a  few  million  Germans  in  Czechoslovakia  who  can't 
get  along  with  the  Czechs;  and  if  Germany  and 
Austria  should  join,  Czechoslovakia  would  probably 
be  squeezed  out  of  business  with  the  utmost  celerity 
and  vigor.  The  choicest  half  of  Czechoslovakia  is 
wedged  between  Germany  and  Austria  as  a  nut  is 
wedged  between  the  jaws  of  a  nut  cracker — and  the 
Germans  in  Czechoslovakia  would  do  their  utmost 
to  assist  in  the  crushing. 

If  the  Allies  do  not  permit  Austria  to  save  herself 
by  joining  Germany,  then  it  would  seem  that  the 

72 


HUSKS 

only  other  solution  of  the  problem  would  be  for  her 
to  become  a  province  of  Czechoslovakia — and  that 
would  be  retribution  of  the  most  extreme  brand. 
The  Czechs  are  Bohemians,  or  Boehms.  The  Aus- 
trians  have  always  despised  them  as  being  slow  and 
pigheaded.  When  an  Austrian  wanted  to  speak  con- 
temptuously of  somebody  he  called  him  a  Boehm 
— Boehm  being  pronounced  as  the  word  "berm" 
would  be  pronounced  in  Boston.  Wandering  gypsy 
bands,  traveling  north  from  Jugoslavia  through 
Austria  into  Czechoslovakia,  picked  up  this  expres- 
sion and  added  it  to  their  slang.  Many  American 
slang  words  come  from  gypsy  slang  by  way  of 
thieves'  kitchens  and  hobo  haunts;  and  from  the 
contemptuous  "Boehm"  of  the  Austrians  and  the 
gypsies  comes  our  contemptuous  slang  word  "bum." 
So  if  Austria,  who  once  ruled  Czechoslovakia  with 
an  iron  hand,  should  become  a  province  of  Czechoslo- 
vakia, she  would  be  ruled  by  the  Boehms,  whom  she 
once  despised  and  oppressed. 

Back  even  of  the  lack  of  coal  and  raw  materials 
is  the  Peace  Conference,  which  has  ruled  that  Austria 
must  exist  as  a  separate  state,  but  refuses  to  allow 
her  the  requisites  of  existence.  It's  about  the  same 
situation  that  might  have  arisen  if  the  Peace  Con- 
ference had  transported  the  city  of  Vienna,  with  its 
two  and  a  quarter  million  people,  to  a  barren  island 
in  the  Pacific  Ocean  and  had  decreed  that  the 
residents  keep  themselves  alive  as  best  they  could. 
In  the  Pacific  the  Viennese  might  at  least  have 
caught  fish  and  lived  on  them;  but  in  Austria  they 
can't  even  get  fish. 

If  the  Peace  Conference  had  announced  solemnly 

73 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

that  on  such  and  such  a  day  it  would  give  a  superb 
production  of  "Hamlet,"  but  that  the  characters  of 
Hamlet,  Ophelia,  the  Ghost,  and  the  First  Grave- 
digger  would  be  eliminated  from  the  play,  there 
would  have  been  a  great  hue  and  cry.  Two  regi- 
ments of  alienists  would  have  been  rushed  to  the 
Conference  posthaste,  and  the  brains  of  the  august 
body  would  have  been  subjected  to  careful  scrutiny. 
This  would  have  been  due  to  the  fact  that  almost 
everybody  knows  all  about  Hamlet  and  realizes 
that  only  a  crazy  man  would  try  to  give  the  play 
without  its  leading  and  essential  characters.  The 
action  of  the  Peace  Conference  as  regards  Austria 
had  earmarks  of  insanity;  but  nobody  seems  to 
know  anything  about  Central  Europe. 

But  only  the  financiers  and  the  statesmen  and  the 
thinkers  of  Vienna  concern  themselves  with  the  lack 
of  raw  material  and  the  mistakes  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. The  bulk  of  the  people  are  chiefly  worried 
about  the  cost  of  the  necessities  of  life,  the  value  of 
their  money,  and  the  place  from  which  their  next 
meal  is  coming.  No  one  can  take  the  Vienna  people 
to  task  for  not  delving  deeper  into  their  problem. 
These  three  worries  of  theirs  are  sufficient  to  keep 
any  worrier,  no  matter  how  high-geared  it  may  be, 
working  overtime.  In  fact,  I  will  guarantee  that  any 
American,  suddenly  confronted  with  any  two  out  of 
the  three  worries  which  occupy  the  waking  moments 
of  every  Viennese,  would  have  to  take  to  his  bed 
with  congestion  of  the  worrier — or  a  lesion,  or  some- 
thing which  would  utterly  unfit  him  for  further 
mental  activity. 

The  krone,  or  crown,  is  the  Austrian  unit  of  ex- 

74 


HUSKS 

change.  The  Austrian  crown  and  the  French  franc 
were  equal  before  the  war,  their  value  in  American 
money  being  20  cents.  Five  Austrian  crowns  were 
equivalent  to  an  American  dollar  in  19 14.  In 
February,  1920,  as  this  is  written,  one  American 
dollar  is  equivalent  to  300  Austrian  crowns.  The 
crown  is  worth  one  third  of  a  cent.  In  other  words, 
the  crown  is  worth  one  sixtieth  of  what  it  used  to  be 
worth,  and  an  Austrian  income  that  used  to  be  worth 
$5,000  a  year  is  now  worth  $8;^. 

The  Austrian  crown  is  divided  into  100  hellers. 
Thus  one  heller  is  worth  one  three-hundredths  of  a 
cent.  This,  I  maintain,  is  about  as  low  as  money 
can  fall  and  still  be  honored  with  the  name  of  money. 
A  five-heller  stamp,  which  is  in  constant  use  in 
Austria,  is  worth  one  sixtieth  of  a  cent.  Since  the 
cost  of  printing  the  stamps,  perforating  them,  and 
applying  the  gum  to  the  backs  must  run  pretty 
close  to  that  figure,  it  is  easy  to  see  why  the  Austrian 
postal  department  isn't  rolling  in  money.  Ten- 
heller  notes,  worth  one  thirtieth  of  a  cent  to  an 
American,  actually  buy  things  in  Austria.  I  don't 
know  what  they  buy,  but  the  Austrians  do.  Women 
will  hang  round  shops  for  ten  or  fifteen  minutes 
waiting  for  20  hellers  change — a  fifteenth  of  a  cent. 
The  heller  offers  some  remarkable  opportunities  for 
puns,  but  it's  good  for  little  else. 

The  collapse  of  monetary  values  in  other  countries 
is  bad  enough;  but  those  collapses  fade  into  in- 
significance beside  the  collapse  in  Central  Europe. 
When  an  American  gets  two  or  three  times  as  many 
francs  in  France  for  a  dollar  as  he  used  to  get  he 
thinks  that  he  is  seeing  a  terrible  state  of  affairs — 

6  75 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

as  he  is.  Then  he  moves  over  into  Germany,  where 
he  gets  from  ten  to  twenty  times  as  many  marks  for 
a  dollar  as  he  used  to  get;  and  he  at  once  thinks 
that  nothing  could  be  worse.  But  when  he  moves 
into  Poland  and  gets  thirty  times  as  many  marks  for 
a  dollar  as  a  dollar  would  normally  bring  he  begins 
to  think  that  the  Germans  are  well  off.  And  when 
he  gets  down  into  Austria  and  gets  sixty  times  as 
much  for  his  money  as  he  could  have  got  in  normal 
times  he  looks  back  at  the  depreciated  French  cur- 
rency as  being  absolutely  sound. 

No  toboggan  ever  slid  down  a  chute  with  more 
rapidity  and  vigor  than  the  Austrian  crown  went 
downhill.  During  the  winter  of  1 918  -19  a  dollar  was 
worth  17  crowns.  In  the  spring  of  1919  a  dollar 
could  be  exchanged  for  30  crowns.  In  the  autumn 
the  rate  was  60  crowns  for  a  dollar.  Early  last 
October  it  was  80,  in  November  100,  in  December 
180;  and  in  January  of  1920  there  was  a  time  when 
a  dollar  would  buy  nearly  400  crowns.  A  man 
who  changed  100  American  dollars  into  small  Aus- 
trian bank  notes  last  January  or  February  would 
have  had  to  bale  them  up  and  carry  them  away  in 
a  taxicab,  for  he  could  never  have  got  them  into  his 
pocket. 

In  May,  19 19,  some  American  destroyers  came  up 
the  Danube  to  Vienna.  The  astute  gobs  looked 
round  and  saw  that  they  could  get  25  crowns  for  a 
dollar.  The  prospect  intrigued  them.  What  a 
chance!  they  declared.  What  a  chance!  Twenty- 
five  crowns  for  a  dollar!  The  crown  could  never  go 
lower  than  that !  So  they  scraped  together  all  their 
American  dollars  and  bought  crowns  at  25.     When 

76 


HUSKS 

they  sold  out  the  rate  was  loo  crowns  for  a  dollar, 
and  they  had  learned  that  one  must  never  think 
that  Central  European  money  has  reached  the 
bottom.  No  matter  how  low  it  is,  it  can  always  go 
lower. 

The  worst  of  it  is  that  the  Austrians  can't  sit  on 
their  money  and  wait  until  its  value  improves. 
They  have  to  spend  it  for  food.  The  shopkeepers 
have  to  sell  their  goods  in  order  to  live,  but  when 
their  stocks  are  gone  they  can  never  be  replaced, 
because  the  profit,  which  is  in  crowns,  will  buy  next 
to  nothing  in  outside  countries.  For  example,  an 
American  in  Vienna  was  going  on  a  trip  into  Jugo- 
slavia last  December.  Before  he  started,  a  Vienna 
tailor  urged  him  to  have  a  suit  made  from  a  very 
fine  piece  of  English  cloth,  assuring  him  that  he 
needn't  pay  for  it  until  his  return.  The  American 
agreed,  and  a  price  of  7,000  crowns  was  fixed  for  the 
suit.  At  that  time  7,000  crowns  was  equivalent  to 
$50.  Some  weeks  later  the  American  returned  and 
got  the  suit,  paying  7,000  crowns  for  it.  But  in- 
stead of  being  worth  $50,  the  7,000  crowns  was  then 
worth  only  a  little  over  $20.  Suppose  the  Vienna 
tailor  had  originally  bought  the  English  cloth  for 
$4  a  yard,  and  used  three  and  a  half  yards  in  making 
the  suit.  The  same  cloth  to-day  would  cost  him 
much  more.  His  profit  on  the  suit  would  enable 
him  to  buy  about  half  a  yard  of  new  cloth. 

And  it  doesn't  even  take  a  person  skilled  in  higher 
mathematics  to  understand  that  if  the  Austrian 
government  buys  a  carload  of  flour  at  1,000,000 
crowns  and  sells  it  fo  the  people  at  cost,  and  if  the 
crown  depreciates  50  per  cent  while  the  people  are 

77 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

buying  the  flour,  the  proceeds  from  the  sale  will 
buy  only  half  a  carload  of  new  flour. 

As  a  result  of  the  depreciated  money  Vienna, 
which  was  the  most  expensive  city  in  Europe  before 
the  war,  is  to-day  the  cheapest  large  city  for  an 
American  to  live  in  that  the  civilized  world  has  ever 
seen  or  probably  ever  will  see.  And  at  the  same  time 
it  is  the  most  cruelly  expensive  place  for  an  Austrian 
that  can  be  imagined. 

I  know  an  American  family  in  Vienna — a  father,' 
a  mother,  and  three  small  children.  They  were 
offered  a  suite  of  rooms  in  Schonbrunn  Palace — the 
former  residence  of  the  Emperor — for  $7  a  month, 
but  they  refused  It  because  they  would  have  had  to 
walk  about  a  mile  through  empty  rooms  to  get  to 
their  cozy  home.  They  finally  took  a  beautiful 
apartment  near  the  center  of  the  city  at  the  same 
rate — $7  a  month.  For  this  amount  they  also 
received  a  complete  outfit  of  coroneted  silver  and 
large  quantities  of  the  finest  table  and  bed  linen. 
They  have  five  servants — a  cook,  a  kitchen  helper, 
two  maids,  and  a  trained  nurse.  They  pay  the  cook 
85  cents  a  month.  The  two  maids  get  50  cents  a 
month  apiece.  The  kitchen  helper,  being  young 
and  unskilled,  cannot  aspire  to  such  a  munificent 
salary;  she  draws  25  cents  a  month.  The  nurse, 
who  received  a  hospital  training,  demanded  a  sal- 
ary of  4  cents  a  day,  but  she  was  given  5  cents 
so  that  she  would  be  thoroughly  satisfied.  Fifteen 
crowns  a  day  is  her  pay;  and  a  dollar  is  equal 
to  300  crowns.  It  is  almost  cheaper  to  have  a 
trained  nurse  in  Vienna  than  to  subscribe  for  the 
London  Times,  for  where  a  trained  nurse  costs  only 

78 


HUSKS 

15  crowns  a  day,  one  copy  of  the  Times  costs  17 
crowns. 

The  head  of  this  family  rents  a  gorgeous  limousine 
from  a  former  cavalry  officer  in  the  Austrian  army. 
He  pays  a  dollar  a  day  for  it,  and  furnishes  all  the 
gasoline  and  pays  half  of  the  tire  expenses.  The 
cavalry  officer  throws  himself  in  as  chauffeur,  and 
also  throws  in  a  mechanician  to  open  the  door  for 
the  American  and  fool  with  the  carburetor  when  it 
shows  signs  of  indisposition.  The  American  doesn't 
care  much  for  the  showiness  of  the  mechanician  and 
would  be  willing  to  pay  five  or  ten  cents  extra  if  the 
cavalryman-chauffeur  would  leave  him  at  home. 
But  he  won't.  The  mechanician  used  to  be  the 
cavalryman's  chauffeur  before  the  war;  and,  besides, 
the  cavalryman  doesn't  know  enough  about  the 
engine  to  trust  himself  alone  with  it.  The  cavalry- 
man owns  three  other  machines.  When  asked  where 
they  came  from  he  replied  that  he  had  once  been 
independently  wealthy,  but  that  the  depreciation  of 
the  money  had  so  decreased  the  size  of  his  fortune 
that  he  thought  he  had  better  invest  it  all  in  au- 
tomobiles before  it  faded  entirely  out  of  sight.  One 
can  buy  a  fine  second-hand  automobile  of  the  best 
make  in  Vienna  for  $1,000. 

This  same  American  family  has  a  box  at  the  opera 
three  or  four  times  a  week.  Vienna  opera  has  few 
equals  in  the  world.  The  singers  are  surpassed  only 
by  New  York.  The  orchestra  and  the  stage  settings 
are  unequaled.  Richard  Strauss  himself  conducts 
the  orchestra.  The  Americans  pay  a  dollar  a  per- 
formance for  their  box. 

At  the  rate  of  exchange  which  existed  in  January 

79 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

the  United  States  could  buy  a  beautiful  palace  in 
Vienna  for  her  diplomatic  representatives  for  $25,000 
— a  sum  about  equal  to  eighteen  months'  rent  on 
such  a  building  at  pre-war  rates.  The  United  States 
has  followed  such  a  wasteful  and  short-sighted 
policy  in  the  past  as  regards  embassies,  legations, 
and  consulates  that  Congress  will  probably  prefer 
to  install  our  foreign  representatives  in  fusty  and 
cockroach-ridden  shacks  at  tremendous  and  con- 
tinuous expense  rather  than  to  see  that  they  occupy 
quarters  which  are  commensurate  with  America's 
position  among  the  nations,  and  which  would  cost 
only  a  fraction  of  what  the  rent  of  the  shacks  would 
eventually  cost.  It  is,  to  put  it  conservatively,  an 
extreme  bore  to  Americans  in  Europe  when  they  see 
American  diplomats  occupying  poorer  quarters  than 
the  representatives  of  obscure  countries  whose  names 
are  unfamiliar  to  the  average  postage-stamp  collector. 
Hotel  bills  in  Vienna  figure  up  to  peculiar  amounts. 
When  I  first  arrived  I  could  only  get  a  room  in  a 
second-rate  hotel.  It  was  a  large  far-flung  room 
with  a  bilious  carpet  and  a  green  porcelain  stove  that 
looked  like  an  ice  chest  which  had  grown  too  rapidly 
in  its  youth.  That  room  cost  17  cents  a  day,  and 
a  bucketful  of  wood  for  the  stove  cost  an  additional 
7  cents.  Feeding  one  bucketful  of  wood  into  the 
stove  was  like  feeding  an  angleworm  to  a  full- 
grown  alligator.  I  attempted  to  negotiate  for  more 
wood,  for  I  planned  to  spend  my  evenings  sitting 
cozily  in  front  of  the  green,  shiny  stove  and  writing 
busily  in  its  genial  warmth.  One  bucketful  of  wood 
gave  the  stove  about  as  much  genial  warmth  as  a 
box  of  wax  matches  would  have  given  it.    So  I 

80 


HUSKS 

approached  one  of  the  eighteen  or  twenty  servants 
who  cared  for  my  room.  Austrian  hotels  may  be 
shy  of  heat,  but  they  are  well  supplied  with  serv- 
ants. One  rings  a  bell  and  a  servant  comes  in, 
while  three  or  four  other  servants  stand  outside 
the  door  and  try  to  peer  in.  In  a  spirit  of  lavish- 
ness  one  hands  him  lo  crowns,  or  3  cents,  and  in- 
structs him  to  bring  in  a  bottle  of  mineral  water. 
He  retires,  and  in  a  few  moments  another  servant 
enters  with  the  bottle  and  hangs  round  expectantly. 
One  gives  him  another  10  crowns,  whereat  he  goes 
away.  In  ten  minutes  a  third  servant  appears  to 
take  the  bottle  away.  He  looks  so  reproachful  and 
so  neglected  that  one  feels  obliged  to  slip  him 
another  10  crowns. 

At  any  rate,  I  begged  the  waiter  to  get  me  some 
more  wood.  The  request  amazed  him.  More,  it 
horrified  him.  One  bucket  of  wood  a  day  was  all 
that  anyone  was  allowed.  To-morrow  I  could  have 
another  bucket.  I  assured  him  that  I  would  freeze 
if  I  waited  until  the  next  day,  and  urged  him  to  go 
out  on  the  street  and  buy  more  for  me.  This  request 
cut  him  to  the  quick.  He  felt  for  me,  but  he  could 
do  nothing.  I  offered  him  untold  wealth — as  much 
as  80  cents — if  he  would  get  wood  for  me.  There 
was  nothing  doing.  He  didn't  know  where  to  buy 
it.  I  saw  the  manager  about  it,  but  it  did  me  no 
good.  During  the  entire  time  I  remained  at  the 
hotel  I  could  get  only  about  twelve  small  pieces  of 
pine  wood  every  day.  A  few  people  in  Vienna 
know  where  to  buy  wood  and  have  enough  money 
to  do  it.  Sometimes  they  can  get  enough  to  keep 
one  room  warm  all  the  time.     But  they  must  be 

81 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

very  wealthy  people,  and  they  must  know  the  secret 
places  where  wood  is  sold. 

From  the  second-rate  hotel  I  moved  to  the  hotel 
which  has  the  reputation  of  being  the  best.  The 
walls  were  padded  with  red  satin,  and  it  had  a 
magnificent  bathroom,  and  the  bed  had  a  silk 
canopy  over  it.  It  was  a  very  expensive  room,  and 
one  had  to  disgorge  30  cents  a  day  for  it.  It  had 
no  stove  at  all,  and  one  paid  8  cents  extra  for  central 
heating,  but  the  central  heating  was  not  a  conspicu- 
ous success.  The  best  that  it  could  do  was  to  take 
the  chill  out  of  a  radiator  for  fifteen  minutes  every 
morning.  It  didn't  heat  it;  it  merely  had  the  same 
effect  on  it  that  a  very  large-mouthed  giant  would 
have  had  if  he  had  breathed  on  it  for  a  short  time. 
Even  though  a  person  has  untold  wealth  in  Vienna, 
he  usually  can't  get  enough  heat.  But  he  can  get 
one  of  the  best  rooms  in  the  best  hotels  in  the  city — 
and  Vienna  has  some  fine  hotels — for  30  American 
cents  a  day.  I  had  a  big  room  in  the  Grand  Hotel 
for  700  crowns  a  week.  Before  the  war  the  same 
room  would  have  cost  more  than  that  for  a  day. 
Imagine  the  situations  reversed,  and  one  can  get 
an  idea  of  the  tragedy  of  it.  Imagine,  for  example, 
that  American  currency  had  depreciated  to  such  an 
extent  that  a  suit  of  clothes  cost  $2,500  and  an 
ordinary  room  in  a  New  York  hotel  cost  $50  a  day. 
And  imagine  Austrians  being  able  to  come  to  New 
York  and  live  in  such  a  room  for  a  crown  a  day; 
imagine  them  getting  a  suit  of  clothes  for  50  crowns 
when  we  were  paying  $2,500.  It  takes  something 
of  an  imagination,  but  that's  the  way  things  were  in 
Vienna  during  the  early  months  of  1920. 

83 


HUSKS 

No  hotel  in  Vienna  is  able  to  heat  water  for  its 
guests  oftener  than  once  a  week.  Baths  have  gone 
out  of  fashion ;  for  a  cold-water  bath  is  viewed  with 
alarm.  The  people  don't  wash.  Every  store,  every 
dining  room,  every  theater  has  an  atmosphere  that 
can  be  cut  with  a  knife.  The  hotels  even  rent  their 
bathrooms.     Perfumery  is  scarce  and  expensive. 

The  hotel  prices  are  not  the  only  ones  which  amaze 
an  American.  The  price  of  everything  is  amazing. 
I  met  a  woman  who  was  buying  antiques  for  an 
interior  decorator.  She  was  buying  almost  blindly. 
"It  doesn't  matter  what  I  buy,"  she  said,  "for  on 
all  the  things  that  I  care  to  take  out  I  can  make  a 
profit  of  from  300  to  400  per  cent,  even  in  Paris. 
If  I  should  take  them  to  New  York  my  profit  would 
run  up  to  700  per  cent  and  even  higher."  Bone- 
headed  business  men  who  couldn't  make  a  success 
anywhere  else  could  get  along  very  nicely  in  Vienna, 
for  they  could  buy  anything  and  invariably  sell  it 
in  other  countries  to  advantage. 

I  quote  a  few  Vienna  prices  at  random  from  my 
notebook,  giving  the  American  equivalent  for  the 
Austrian  money.  A  safety  razor,  exactly  like  a 
popular  American  make,  packed  in  a  leather  case 
with  a  dozen  blades,  sells  for  80  crowns,  or  about 
25  cents.  A  dozen  blades,  made  to  fit  my  own 
razor,  cost  20  crowns,  or  6  cents.  A  Mauser  au- 
tomatic pistol  in  its  wooden  holster  butt  was  priced 
at  $3.  This  was  the  gun  carried  by  German  officers, 
and  is  one  of  the  best-made  automatic  pistols  in  the 
world.  A  Styer  automatic  pistol  cost  $2.50  and  a 
Styer  revolver  $1.  They  are  both  good  guns.  An 
excellent  sporting  rifle  with  telescopic  sights  cost 

83 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

$3.50.  The  best  double-barreled  shotgun  in  one  of 
the  best  gun  stores  in  Vienna  cost  $9. 

A  guidebook  to  Vienna,  which  used  to  sell  for 
4  crowns,  or  80  cents,  before  the  war,  now  sells  for 
6  crowns,  or  2  cents,  A  malacca  walking  stick, 
mounted  in  sterling  silver,  can  be  bought  more 
cheaply  in  Vienna  than  it  can  be  bought  in  Singapore, 
where  malacca  comes  from.  Such  a  stick  in  Vienna 
costs  $1.  Ten  colored  post  cards  sell  for  half  a 
crown  apiece,  and  foreign  post-card  postage  is  an- 
other half  crown.  Therefore  one  can  buy  ten  post 
cards  and  send  them  to  America  for  3  cents.  It  isn't 
reasonable.  A  manicure  costs  2>2  cents;  a  haircut 
3>2  cents;  a  shave  i^  cents.  Wouldn't  it — as  the 
less-refined  elements  used  to  remark — jar  you? 

A  gold  wedding  ring  that  used  to  cost  20  crowns, 
or  $4,  now  costs  700  crowns,  or  $2.30.  A  platinum 
chain  with  a  pendant  of  small  diamonds  and  pearls 
set  in  platinum  used  to  cost  500  crowns,  or  $100; 
now  it  is  12,000  crowns,  or  $40.  A  beautiful  bead 
bag  knitted  from  tiny  beads  so  that  it  crumples 
softly  into  the  palm  of  the  hand  used  to  cost  800 
crowns,  or  $160;  to-day  it  costs  9,000  crowns,  or  $30. 

That's  about  the  way  with  all  things.  Things 
cost  infinitely  more  in  crowns  than  ever  before,  but 
because  of  the  down-rushing  rate  of  exchange  they're 
cheaper  than  ever  from  the  viewpoint  of  the  person 
from  a  country  whose  money  has  not  depreciated  so 
violently. 

It  is,  of  course,  unfair  to  quote  Vienna  prices  in 
dollars,  for  somebody  may  get  the  idea  that  the 
prices  are  cheap  for  the  Viennese  as  well  as  for 
Americans.     This,  of  course,  is  not  the  case.    For  a 

84 


HUSKS 

Viennese  the  prices  are  prohibitive.  He  can't  buy 
anything  at  all.  I  quote  prices  in  the  above  manner 
to  emphasize  the  fact  that  when  the  Vienna  shop- 
keepers have  finally  sold  everything,  the  amount  of 
money  which  they  have  made  from  the  sales  won't 
be  large  enough  to  permit  them  to  get  new  stocks 
from  the  outside  countries. 

All  the  above  prices  are  figured  on  the  basis  of 
300  crowns  for  a  dollar,  which  is  the  average  rate  of 
exchange  that  one  could  get  late  in  January  and 
early  in  February,  1920.  One  of  the  most  shameful 
features  of  the  whole  Central  European  mess  is  the 
manner  in  which  money  speculation  is  permitted  to 
continue.  How  it  can  be  stopped  I  do  not  know. 
American  bankers  have  looked  at  the  situation,  and 
they  do  not  know.  They  say  that  the  financial 
situation  in  Central  Europe  is  unparalleled  in  the 
world's  history.  Meanwhile,  every  nation  in  that 
locality  is  knifing  every  other  nation,  and  the 
bankers  are  knifing  their  own  people  by  aiding  in  the 
destruction  of  money  values.  The  value  of  the 
money  of  Central  European  countries  is  very  low 
because  of  the  lack  of  credits  and  the  lack  of  produc- 
tion, but  it  is  not  so  low  as  the  rate  would  tend  to 
show.  The  violent  fluctuations  are  due  in  part  to 
speculation. 

In  one  of  the  large  banks  in  Vienna  on  the  12  th 
of  January  I  exchanged  American  dollars  into  crowns 
at  the  official  Zurich  rate  of  195  crowns  for  a  dollar. 
Private  banking  houses  outside  were  giving  250 
and  260  crowns  for  a  dollar.  On  February  6th  the 
official  Zurich  rate  was  260  crowns  for  a  dollar. 
Having  learned  from  experience  not  to  have  money 

85 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

exchanged  at  a  big  bank,  I  went  to  a  private  bank 
and  received  330  crowns  for  each  dollar,  though  the 
official  rate  was  260.  Between  January  12  th  and 
February  6th  there  was  one  day  when  the  official 
bank  rate  was  310  crowns  for  a  dollar  and  when  the 
private  banks  were  giving  400.  Since  the  private 
bankers  were  not  in  business  for  love,  they  were  dis- 
posing of  each  dollar  for  more  than  400  crowns. 
The  effect  of  such  dealings  on  Vienna  business  and 
prices  is  nerve-racking.  No  matter  how  rapidly 
the  shopkeepers  raise  their  prices,  they  cannot  keep 
pace  with  the  falling  exchange.  They  can't  even 
find  the  point  to  which  exchange  has  fallen  at  a 
given  moment. 

The  government  is  doing  its  utmost  to  keep  abreast 
of  the  falling  money  values  by  printing  more  of  it. 
The  newness  and  crispness  of  the  Austrian  money 
made  me  curious  as  to  how  it  was  done,  so  I  went 
down  to  the  Austro-Hungarian  Bank,  which  prints 
all  the  money,  and  asked  to  be  allowed  to  see  the 
printing  presses.  The  menial  whom  I  asked  almost 
swooned  at  my  insolence.  He  passed  me  on  to  the 
eighteenth  assistant  manager,  who  turned  me  over 
to  the  eleventh  assistant  manager,  who  shunted  me 
off  to  the  second  secretary  of  the  director.  The  lat- 
ter refused  my  request.  I  went  back  to  the  sixth 
assistant  manager,  who  summoned  the  second  assist- 
ant manager,  who  led  me  to  the  director's  first 
secretary.  He  was  persuaded  to  admit  me  to  the 
presence  of  the  director  himself. 

The  director  was  horrified  at  my  demand.  No 
foreigner  had  ever  seen  the  printing  department. 
Who  was  I,  anyway?    With  a  flourish  I  produced 

86 


HUSKS 

my  passport  and  indicated  the  stamped  signature  of 
the  Secretary  of  State.  The  director  was  impressed. 
Ah,  well!  if  the  Secretary  of  State  had  signed  my 
papers,  I  should  enter.  He  summoned  the  director 
of  the  bank-note  department,  Arthur  Naderny. 
Naderny  has  invented  most  of  the  engraving  and 
printing  processes  in  use  in  Austria,  and  his  inven- 
tions have  been  adopted  by  practically  every  other 
nation,  including  the  United  States.  His  machine 
for  engraving  the  copper  plates  for  bank  notes  is 
one  of  the  most  complicated  machines  in  the  world. 
It  looks  like  the  insides  of  thousands  of  watches, 
and  the  whole  machine  could  easily  be  covered  by 
a  bushel  basket.  Naderny  made  a  few  adjustments 
in  the  machine,  slipped  a  copper  plate  into  place, 
and  started  it  going.  A  needle  cut  a  beautiful  and 
intricate  design  in  the  copper,  and  when  the  design 
was  finished  it  stopped  of  its  own  accord.  It  can  be 
adjusted  to  engrave  any  sort  of  conventional  design 
or  animal  figures  or  faces — anything  at  all. 

The  Austrian  bank-note  printing  department 
starts  running  every  morning  at  half  past  seven. 
It  prints  bank  notes  steadily  until  quarter  past  three 
in  the  afternoon.  Then  a  new  shift  comes  on  and 
prints  from  four  in  the  afternoon  until  half  past 
eleven  at  night.  Day  and  night  the  money  rolls  off 
the  presses.  On  Saturdays  the  work  is  less  arduous. 
The  first  shift  works  from  half  past  seven  to  twelve, 
and  the  second  shift  works  from  one  to  six.  Every 
day  an  average  of  100,000,000  crowns  is  struck  off, 
and  the  average  monthly  production  is  3,000,000,000 
crowns.  This  is  the  amount  that  used  to  be  pro- 
duced in  an  entire  year  before  the  war. 

87 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

Naderny  showed  me  the  typographical  printing 
room,  where  a  battery  of  thirteen  machines  sHd 
great  sheets  of  bank  notes  under  the  presses  and 
flapped  them  down  in  piles.  He  took  me  to  the 
copper-plate  printing  room,  where  a  battery  of 
nineteen  machines  stolidly  ground  out  sheets  of 
1,000-crown  notes.  Each  one  of  the  nineteen 
machines  spilled  out  four  notes  at  a  time  and  3,000 
sheets  a  day,  or  so  that  the  total  for  the  nineteen 
was  228,000,000  crowns  in  one  day.  On  the  next 
day  these  nineteen  machines  might  work  on  50- 
crown  notes,  so  that  the  average  would  be  reduced. 
These  machines  were  Naderny 's  invention.  Four 
men  turn  out  twice  as  many  notes  with  one  of  them 
as  six  men  used  to  turn  out  with  the  old-type  ma- 
chine. Naderny  showed  me  the  offset  printing 
room.  Offset  printing  is  an  American  invention. 
In  another  room  sheets  of  50-crown  notes  were 
cascading  out  of  a  wooden  chute  by  the  thousands, 
and  men  were  staggering  round,  carrying  great  piles 
of  sheets. 

Americans  in  eastern,  southeastern,  and  central 
Europe  enjoy  an  enviable  reputation,  and  occa- 
sionally a  hard-boiled  or  imitation  American  gets  in 
and  tries  to  trade  on  that  reputation.  The  Austrians 
who  are  now  in  control  of  the  badly  leaking  ship  of 
state  are  an  inexperienced  and  gullible  crew.  Their 
dealings  with  Americans  have  given  them  a  child 
faith  in  everything  American.  Not  long  ago  the 
Austrian  Finance  Minister  telephoned  to  the  Hoover 
outfit  in  Vienna  and  asked  their  advice  in  regard  to  a 
proposition  which  an  American  had  put  up  to  him. 
They  investigated  and  found  the  American  was  an 


HUSKS 

offensive  specimen  and  that  his  proposition  was  the 
rawest  of  get-rich-quick  schemes.  The  Finance 
Minister  had  actually  considered  the  proposition, 
since  it  came  from  an  American. 

Another  gentleman  had  a  brilliant  scheme  to  get 
food  out  of  the  Relief  Administration  for  nine 
thousand  children  belonging  to  members  of  the  new 
Austrian  army,  which  is  a  trade-unionized  affair. 
The  army  was  to  give  him  $2,000,  and  he  was  to  do 
the  rest.  He  said  he  was  an  American  citizen.  He 
even  had  it  on  his  business  cards.  "U.  S.  A.  citizen," 
said  his  cards,  "St.  Francisco."  The  "St.  Fran- 
cisco" was  a  horrible  mistake,  because  a  lot  of  the 
Relief  Administration  people,  like  Mr.  Hoover,  went 
to  college  in  California,  and  any  little  slur  like  a 
slighting  reference  to  California  climate,  a  mention 
of  earthquakes,  or  the  mispronunciation  of  the  name 
San  Francisco  can  never  be  forgiven  by  a  native 
or  an  adopted  Californian.  So  when  the  head  of 
the  Austrian  army  turned  over  the  documents  in  the 
case  to  the  Relief  Administration  it  lit  on  this 
U.  S.  A.  citizen  from  St.  Francisco  like  a  ton  of 
brick,  or  even  like  several  tons  of  brick.  It  ad- 
vised him  hoarsely  to  take  the  words  "U.  S.  A. 
citizen"  off  his  calling  cards  unless  he  was  aching 
to  be  shot.  And  it  discovered  that  he  was  really 
an  Austrian  citizen  who  had  never  been  within 
three  thousand  miles  of  St.  or  San  Francisco. 

Americans  in  Vienna  are  anxious  to  see  the  estab- 
lishment of  some  sort  of  bureau  which  will  require 
the  registration  of  all  commercial  travelers  from  all 
nations,  and  thus  make  it  possible  to  find  out 
whether  or  not  they  represent  reputable  firms. 

89 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Not  only  have  foreigners  stripped  the  Vienna 
stores,  but  they  have  also  dipped  heavily  into 
Austrian  factories  and  railroads.  The  Viennese 
stockbrokers  say  that  there  is  five  times  as  much 
stock-market  speculation  on  the  part  of  the  Viennese 
as  there  was  before  the  war,  but  that  they  are  buying 
and  selling  small  blocks.  The  only  really  heavy 
trading  is  done  by  the  French,  Italians,  and  British. 
They  are  buying  in  great  quantities  and  buying  to 
hold;  so  there  are  some  hard-headed  people  who 
have  faith  in  Austria's  future.  Foreign  capital 
bought  up  all  the  stock  in  the  Alpine  Mountain  Iron 
Works.  This  stock  sold  at  800  crowns,  or  $160  a 
share,  before  the  war.  The  last  recorded  sales  were 
5,400  crowns,  or  $18  a  share.  It  is  still  paying 
dividends  of  20  crowns  a  year  from  past  earnings. 
French  capital  has  bought  the  control  of  Veitscher 
Magnesit,  which  used  to  sell  for  300  crowns,  but  now 
brings  17,000  a  share.  French  capital  is  also  taking 
a  large  interest  in  the  Commercial  Bank  of  Vienna. 
The  Italians  have  negotiated  for  large  interests  in 
the  Depositen  Bank  of  Vienna  and  in  the  Commer- 
cial Bank. 

As  I  have  said,  this  is  all  very  soft  for  the  for- 
eigners, but  for  the  Viennese  it  is  little  short  of  a 
living  hell.  How  they  endure  it  without  rushing 
into  the  street  and  tearing  the  entire  city  to  pieces 
in  their  despair  is  beyond  the  comprehension  of  all 
the  onlookers.  There  isn't  any  decent  food  for  them 
to  buy,  and  there  hasn't  been  since  191 7.  As  for 
clothes,  they  can't  dream  of  buying  them,  because  of 
their  expensiveness.  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  bulk 
of  the  people  in  Vienna.     In  Vienna,  as  in  every 

90 


HUSKS 

other  city,  there  are  war  profiteers  and  speculators 
who  have  made  money.  A  few  thousand  out  of  the 
two  and  a  quarter  million  can  buy  clothes  and  enjoy 
the  few  luxuries  that  Vienna  affords ;  but  more  than 
two  million  are  helpless  and,  to  all  intents  and 
purposes,  penniless.  Two  million  people,  all  in  one 
city  and  all  practically  unable  to  obtain  heat,  light, 
clothes,  or  any  sort  of  food  except  the  poorest  and 
most  meager  sort  of  victuals,  is  sufficient  to  give  one 
pause  when  he  comes  in  contact  with  it.  It  is  even 
sufficient  to  give  one  a  number  of  long,  ruminative 
pauses. 

To  lack  fuel  of  every  sort  throughout  a  winter 
must  be  a  very  terrible  thing.  Stop  and  think  of  it 
for  a  moment,  think  of  being  unable  to  purchase  the 
coal  or  the  wood  or  the  gasoline  or  the  kerosene 
that  one  needs  in  order  to  cook  food  each  day. 
Think  of  having  no  place  to  sit,  day  after  day  and 
night  after  night,  except  a  room  as  cold  as  a  refriger- 
ator. Yet  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Vienna  people 
are  in  that  position.  In  one  way  the  cold  is  worse 
than  the  hunger.  A  person's  stomach  protects 
itself  against  continued  hunger  by  shrinking;  when 
the  Hoover  people  started  to  feed  the  Vienna  chil- 
dren, hundreds  of  them  were  unable  to  eat  the  al- 
loted  ration;  their  stomachs  wouldn't  hold  it.  But 
cold  is  a  different  proposition,  especially  when  the 
person  exposed  to  it  is  badly  nourished. 

The  Vienna  people  make  strenuous  efforts  to  get 
fuel.  They  accomplish  unbelievable  feats.  For 
example,  they  walk  out  to  the  Wiener  Wald  and  cut 
down  trees  and  chop  them  up  and  load  them  on  their 
backs  and  walk  back  home.     It  sounds  easy.     But 

7  91 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

suppose  it's  the  young  wife  oi  a  postal  official  who's 
doing  it.  She's  twenty-three  years  old  and  not  over- 
strong  because  she  had  a  baby  a  year  ago.  She 
hasn't  had  enough  to  eat  for  more  than  two  years. 
She  takes  a  saw  and  a  sack,  and  she  goes  five  miles 
out  to  the  Wiener  Wald,  and  she  saws  down  a  tree 
and  saws  it  up  and  loads  it  into  her  sack — ^fifty  or 
sixty  pounds  of  it — and  straps  the  sack  on  her  back 
and  returns  to  the  city,  jostled  and  trampled  on 
by  the  thousands  of  people  who  are  doing  likewise. 
It  isn't  the  height  of  relaxation  and  enjoyment  for 
such  a  person  to  go  through  such  an  experience,  but 
thousands  upon  thousands  endured  it  week  after 
week  all  through  last  winter. 

The  Wiener  Wald,  which  is  merely  the  German 
way  of  saying  Vienna  Forest,  starts  on  the  western 
outskirts  of  Vienna  and  stretches  over  the  valleys 
and  hill  slopes  for  several  miles.  When  the  fuel 
shortage  became  acute  the  city  of  Vienna  permitted 
the  residents  to  go  into  the  forest  and  cut  the  trees. 
This  method  was  selected  because  the  city  govern- 
ment feared  that  any  other  method  of  distribution 
would  be  attended  by  serious  riots.  So  any  citizen 
of  Vienna  can  get  a  pink  piece  of  paper  which  en- 
titles him  to  go  to  the  Wiener  Wald  four  times  and 
cut  down  sixty  pounds  of  wood  at  each  trip.  He  can 
have  one  of  these  slips  every  two  weeks. 

Every  day  the  people  flock  to  the  forest  by  the 
thousands.  I  went  over  one  Friday  afternoon  in  late 
January,  just  at  sundown.  The  people  were  coming 
home  in  droves,  and  each  person  had  approximately 
sixty  pounds  on  his  back.  There  were  old,  old  men 
and  little  boys ;  there  were  girls  ten  and  twelve  and 

92 


HUSKS 

fifteen  years  old ;  there  were  women  of  forty  and  fifty 
and  sixty.  There  were  shopkeepers  and  laborers 
and  street-car  conductors  and  soldiers  and  post- 
ofhce  officials.  There  were  people  who,  up  to  four 
years  ago,  had  had  luxuries  and  refinements  and  easy 
living.  Each  one  had  a  sack  of  wood  on  his  back, 
and  each  one  was  bent  almost  double  under  it.  The 
road  which  led  out  to  the  forest  from  the  edge  of  the 
city  was  solid  with  these  laden  people,  so  that  it 
looked  like  a  street  leading  to  a  football  field  just 
before  a  big  game.  They  had  been  cutting  wood  all 
the  afternoon.  They  had  been  hacking  down  real 
trees  with  little  handsaws.  I  stopped  four  girls  in 
succession  and  looked  at  their  hands.  Each  girl 
was  about  fifteen  years  old.  The  hands  of  three  of 
them  were  covered  with  blisters,  some  of  which  were 
broken  and  some  of  which  were  not.  The  hands  of 
the  fourth  one  were  tied  with  bloody  rags.  It  was 
her  first  trip.  Her  brother  always  had  gone.  The 
last  time  he  went  a  falling  tree  had  broken  his  arm. 
Yes,  it  was  hard  work.  She  would  prefer  to  be  cold. 
But  her  father  was  sick. 

They  came  down  the  road  by  the  thousands,  all 
kinds  and  conditions  of  them,  each  stooped  under  his  or 
her  sixty-pound  load.  They  would  stop  before  stone 
walls  and  rest  their  packs  on  the  wall  and  hunker 
down  to  ease  the  strain  on  their  aching  backs.  And 
then  they  would  struggle  up  and  plod  on  again. 
Thousands  of  them.  Never  a  day  went  by  last 
winter  that  15,000  people  didn't  go  out  from  Vienna 
to  cut  wood  in  the  Wiener  Wald,  and  never  a  Satur- 
day passed  that  30,000  of  them  didn't  go  out  to  cut. 
If  Dante  should  come  back   to  earth  he  could  get 

93 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

out  of  Vienna  some  excellent  additional  cantos  for 
his  "Inferno." 

Many  of  the  woodcutters  have  to  walk  only  a 
mile  and  a  half  or  two  miles  with  their  sixty-pound 
sacks,  because  the  city  runs  street  cars  out  to  the 
city  limits — street  cars  without  windows,  so  that  the 
packs  can  be  rested  on  the  window  ledges.  But 
some  of  them  wait  for  hours  to  get  a  place  in  a  car, 
and  aren't  successful,  so  they  have  to  walk  all  the 
way  in.  Little  boys  and  little  girls  and  old  men  and 
old  women  walking  four  miles  with  sixty-pound  sacks 
on  their  backs! 

Salaries  and  wages  in  Vienna  are  hopelessly  in- 
adequate. The  President  of  the  Austrian  Republic 
receives  40,000  crowns  a  year.  That,  at  the  rate 
which  prevailed  in  January,  was  equivalent  to  about 
$135  in  American  money.  A  well-paid  bank  em- 
ployee, such  as  a  department  manager,  a  cashier,  or 
a  head  bookkeeper,  received  30,000  crowns  a  year 
if  he  had  been  with  the  bank  more  than  fifteen  years. 
A  high-grade  newspaper  man  was  paid  24,000  crowns 
a  year.  A  te'acher  in  a  high  school  received  19,000 
crowns  a  year.  The  best  stenographers  earned 
12,000  yearly.  The  best-paid  clerks  in  department 
stores  were  paid  10,000  crowns  a  year.  A  railway 
conductor  got  7,000  crowns  a  year.  At  the  same 
period  a  good  suit  of  clothes  cost  10,000  crowns.  So 
did  a  good  bead  bag.  And  the  conductor's  salary 
would  have  bought  a  dinner  for  twelve  people  at  the 
best  Vienna  restaurant. 

Street-car  fares  have  risen  in  Vienna  from  14 
hellers  before  the  war  to  2  crowns  at  present.  If  a 
man  lived  on  the  outskirts  of  the  city  and  rode  to 

94 


HUSKS 

and  from  his  work  300  days  a  year  he  would  pay 
1,200  crowns.  This  would  put  something  of  a 
crimp  in  a  railway  conductor's  salary. 

I  sat  down  one  morning  with  the  head  of  the 
foreign  department  of  a  big  Vienna  bank  to  figure 
on  living  costs.  Our  figuring  was  based  on  the 
needs  of  a  couple  with  one  child.  They  were  people 
of  modest  tastes,  who  lived  in  the  simplest  manner. 
They  ate  most  frugally,  they  had  almost  no  new 
clothes,  they  never  rode  in  street  cars,  they  never 
went  to  a  theater  or  had  a  meal  in  a  restaurant,  and 
they  never  went  to  the  doctor  or  the  dentist.  We 
pared  our  figures  down  more  than  we  should  have; 
but  the  total  yearly  budget  of  that  imaginary  family 
amounted  to  62,000  crowns — 22,000  crowns  more 
than  the  President  of  Austria  is  paid.  It  was  also  a 
good  many  thousand  crowns  more  than  the  salary 
of  my  friend  the  bank  official,  and  it  was  nearly  ten 
times  the  salary  of  a  railway  conductor. 

"Now  look  here,"  I  said  to  the  bank  official,  "if 
these  figures  are  anywhere  near  right,  as  they  are, 
how  can  you  get  along  when  your  salary  isn't  nearly 
so  large?" 

His  eyes  wavered  a  trifle.  "To  tell  you  the 
truth,"  he  said,  "I  have  a  Httle  business  of  my  own 
on  the  side — a  little  export  business.  If  it  weren't 
for  that  I  couldn't  get  along." 

"Then  it's  all  right  for  you,"  I  said,  "but  how 
about  the  two  million  others?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Most  of  them  are 
buying  or  selling  on  the  side,"  he  said.  "If  they 
aren't  they're  starving." 

I  investigated  and  found  that  his  statement  came 

95 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

very  near  to  being  true.  The  number  of  people  who 
have  something  to  sell  or  who  are  willing  to  buy- 
something  on  the  chance  of  selling  it  at  a  higher 
price  is  enormous.  A  foreigner  who  goes  into  a 
restaurant  to  eat  will  be  approached  by  people  with 
all  sorts  of  things  to  sell.  One  of  the  waiters  will 
offer  cigarettes ;  a  stranger  will  come  up  and  extract 
watches  from  every  pocket  in  an  endeavor  to  interest 
you ;  another  man  will  ask  if  you  wish  to  sell  French 
francs  or  English  pounds  or  Italian  lire  or  American 
dollars;  still  another  will  whisper  that  he  knows  a 
place  where  a  fine  tapestry  can  be  bought.  One 
hears  no  conversation — none — which  doesn't  deal 
with  buying  and  selling.  The  people  have  got  to 
have  the  money.  They  become  so  dotty  on  the 
subject  of  buying  and  selling  that  they  will  blindly 
buy  things  which  don't  exist  and  gayly  dispose  of 
them  to  other  frenzied  financiers. 

This  has  given  rise  to  the  expression  "Luft 
Geschaft,"  or  air  business — a  business  which  exists 
only  in  the  air.  For  example,  a  Vienna  air  trader 
passes  into  a  trance  and  emerges  with  the  statement 
that  he  has  a  carload  of  coal.  He  is  overheard, 
and  somebody  immediately  makes  him  an  offer  for 
it.  He  accepts  and  collects  the  money.  The  second 
man  in  turn  sells  the  carload  to  some  one  else,  who 
sells  it  to  a  fourth  man,  who  works  it  off  on  a  fifth, 
who  disposes  of  it  to  a  sixth.  The  sixth  man  really 
wants  a  carload  of  coal  for  immediate  use,  so  he  tries 
to  get  delivery.  But  there  isn't  any  coal  and  never 
was  any  coal.  It  was  purely  air  coal.  And  since  it 
is  illegal  to  deal  in  coal  privately,  he  has  some  reluc- 
tance about  making  an  uproar  over  the  affair.     He 

96 


HUSKS 

is,  as  the  Viennese  say,  "chased  by  the  hounds."  But 
occasionally,  a  man  who  has  been  stung  in  a  dirty 
bit  of  air  business  takes  his  troubles  into  court  and 
the  judge  almost  goes  mad  trying  to  unravel  the 
problem. 

Almost  every  person  that  one  passes  on  the  street 
in  Vienna  is  talking  money.  During  the  second 
year  of  the  war  all  Vienna  talked  of  apartments  and 
the  difficulty  of  getting  them.  During  the  third 
year  of  the  war  the  universal  talk  was  of  clothes  and 
boots.  During  the  fourth  year  the  talk  was  all  of 
food;  but  now  all  the  talk  deals  with  money — 
money  which  must  be  had  in  order  to  pay  the  awful 
prices.  Stenographers,  clerks,  young  boys,  waiters — 
they  all  talk  money.  They  are  all  speculating  in 
something.  They  are  all  buying  shares.  They 
are  all  playing  the  state  lottery.  I  followed  the 
crowd  one  day  and  invested  208  crowns  in  ticket 
Number  50,050  of  the  German-Austrian  State 
Lottery,  Fourth  Class.  I  liked  the  number — ^fifty- 
fifty.  This  ticket  might  win  100,000  crowns.  It 
has  one  chance  to  do  that;  one  chance  to  win  50,000; 
one  chance  to  win  30,000;  three  chances  to  win 
10,000;  eight  chances  to  win  5,000;  sixteen  chances 
to  win  2,000;  thirty-five  chances  to  win  1,000; 
forty  chances  to  win  800 ;  fifty-five  chances  to  Vin 
600;  and  2,590  chances  to  get  its  money  back. 
The  Fifth  Class  Lottery  is  even  higher;  at  the  top 
is  a  capital  prize  of  700,000  crowns;  and  at  the 
bottom  are  39,798  prizes  of  200  crowns  each.  Every- 
one figures  that  he'll  at  least  be  lucky  enough  to  get 
his  money  back. 

The  selling  of  foodstuffs  which  are  supposed  to  be 

97 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

government  controlled  is  known  as  *'Schleich- 
handel,"  or  underhand  dealing;  and  a  man  who  sells 
food  illegally  is  a  Schleichhandler.  If  a  man  does 
enough  Schleichhandling  he  is  promoted  to  the 
rank  of  Schieber.  One  of  the  worst  features  of 
Schleichhandling  is  the  manner  in  which  the 
Schleichhandlers  sell  to  one  another  before  dispos- 
ing of  their  goods  to  the  ultimate  consumer.  A 
Schleichhandler  might  go  out  into  the  country  and 
get  a  lot  of  eggs,  for  example,  and  then  sell  them  to 
another  Schleichhandler,  who  would  sell  them  to 
another,  and  so  on.  This  is  known  as  Kettenhandel, 
or  chain  dealing. 

Most  of  this  selling  and  buying  takes  place  in 
cafes.  Certain  cafes  get  the  reputation  of  being 
Schieber  cafes,  and  one  goes  to  them  to  buy  or  sell 
anything  from  Chinese  tapestries  and  Czechoslova 
money  to  a  pound  of  cheese.  The  Vienna  people 
have  a  great  joke  among  themselves.  They  declare 
solemnly  that  a  man  went  into  the  biggest  Schieber 
caf6  in  the  city  and  announced  that  he  had  two  car- 
loads of  snow,  and  that  another  man  immediately 
oJEfered  to  buy  them.  This  statement  always  pro- 
vokes shrieks  of  merriment. 

On  Saturdays  almost  every  tenth  man  that  one 
me^s  in  Vienna  has  a  canvas  knapsack  strapped  to 
his  back  and  is  headed  out  into  the  country  to  get 
food  of  some  sort  from  the  farmers.  The  farmers 
are  extremely  averse  to  sending  their  produce  to 
Vienna  for  sale.  There  are  several  reasons  for  this. 
For  one  thing,  money  means  nothing  to  the  farmer. 
He  can't  get  enough  in  return  for  his  produce  to  buy 
clothes  or  tools,  so  he  scorns  it.     But  he  is  willing 

98 


HUSKS 

to  barter.  Offer  an  Austrian  farmer  a  pair  of  pants, 
and  he'll  trade  anything  he  owns  for  them.  So 
the  Viennese  take  old  shirts  and  second-hand  under- 
clothing and  trousers  into  the  country  and  trade 
them  for  butter  and  eggs  and  meat.  Part  of  the  food 
they  keep  themselves,  and  part  they  sell  to  the 
Schleichhandlers.  All  the  Vienna  hotels  are  sup- 
plied with  food  by  Schleichhandlers;  and  a  person 
who  walks  the  Stygian  streets  of  the  city  late  at  night 
will  see  them,  bent  under  their  loaded  knapsacks, 
clumping  toward  the  hotels  in  little  groups  of  three 
or  five.  It  would  be  no  good  to  seize  this  food  from 
the  farmers  and  distribute  it  equally ;  for  even  under 
normal  conditions  the  total  food  production  of 
Austria  as  it  exists  at  present  is  only  30  per  cent  of 
the  amount  which  the  people  require.  If  such  a 
distribution  were  attempted  nobody  would  have 
nearly  enough;  whereas  at  the  present  time  the 
farmers  can  feed  themselves  and  sell  a  little  to  the 
Schleichhandlers . 

The  farmers  hate  the  Viennese.  Vienna  is  a 
socialist  city,  and  the  farmers  are  anti-socialist. 
The  Social  Democracy  which  obtains  among  the 
Vienna  workmen  is  perilously  akin  to  Bolshevism; 
whereas  the  farmers,  owning  their  land,  are  de- 
cidedly unsympathetic  toward  the  radical  views  of 
those  who  have  been  unable  to  show  enough  thrift, 
iniative,  and  gumption  to  obtain  possessions  of  their 
own,  and  who  therefore  advocate  seizing  the  posses- 
sions of  more  industrious  citizens.  The  Austrian 
farmer,  moreover,  declares  that  the  Viennese  are 
not  Austrians  at  all,  but  hybrids^an  indistinguish- 
a,ble  mixture  of  Hungarian,  Rumanian,  German,  Slav, 

99 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

Hebrew,  and  Italian.  And  the  farmers  are  right. 
The  people  of  Vienna  are  Viennese  first  and  Austrian 
afterward.  They  are  good-natured,  easy-going,  lov- 
able, brilliant,  and  shiftless.  "The  fundamental 
features  of  the  character  of  the  people,"  says  Lech- 
ner's  Guide  to  Vienna,  published  in  Vienna  in  19 13, 
"are  justly  considered  to  be  joviality  and  good  na- 
ture. The  Viennese  has  a  sympathizing  heart,  and 
he  is  happiest  when  he  has  it  in  his  power  to  be  kind 
and  indulgent.  He  is  fond  of  music  and  dancing 
and  loves  to  spend  his  leisure  hours  in  merry  com- 
pany. In  places  of  public  amusement,  be  they  ever 
so  numerously  attended,  everything  goes  off  in 
harmless  and  innocent  enjoyment." 

If  the  Viennese  consent  to  go  without  food  and 
without  shoes  and  ■v^dthout  clothes  without  making  an 
uproar,  then  they  deserve  the  palm  as  the  most 
easy-going  people  who  have  ever  existed.  Such  an 
attitude  may  well  be  designated  the  height  of 
joviality  and  good  nature — the  very  peak  of  harm- 
less and  innocent  enjoyment — the  apotheosis  of 
kindness  and  indulgence.  But  whatever  a  person 
wants  to  call  this  peculiar  Viennese  trait,  it  has  kept 
them  from  erupting  in  a  series  of  outbreaks  that 
would  wreck  the  city. 

* '  I  have  had  a  very  intimate  knowledge  of  Central 
European  affairs  for  a  year  or  more,"  said  an 
American  army  officer  in  Vienna,  "and  I  know  that 
no  other  city  in  Europe  would  have  remained  quiet 
under  the  same  conditions  that  have  obtained  in 
Vienna;  but  even  these  easy-going  people  may  take 
to  anarchy  unless  measures  are  soon  adopted  for 
their  relief." 

100 


HUSKS 

Vienna  is  a  city  of  palaces,  cafes,  and  antique  shops. 
The  cafes  and  the  antique  shops  are  about  on  a  par 
numerically.  Every  fifth  doorway  in  Vienna  admits 
one  either  to  an  antique  shop  or  a  cafe.  The  Vienna 
cafes  exist  solely  as  loafing  places  for  the  kind  and 
indulgent  Viennese.  They  sell  only  tea,  coffee,  and 
chocolate.  The  Viennese  flock  to  them  early  in  the 
morning,  get  their  cups  of  tea,  coffee,  or  chocolate, 
and  then  sit  round  and  talk  or  read  newspapers  or 
write  letters  or  sell  things  to  one  another  until  late 
in  the  evening.  The  cafes  are  always  full,  for 
they  are  about  the  only  places  in  the  city  that 
are  warm. 

In  every  antique  shop  there  is  always  somebody 
who  is  selling  his  belongings  in  order  to  get  enough 
money  on  which  to  exist.  The  people  come  in  with 
little  newspaper-wrapped  bundles  under  their  arms 
and  sell  the  contents  for  about  one  fortieth  of  their 
value.  The  antique  dealers  in  turn  sell  them  to 
foreigners  at  about  one  tenth  of  their  value — in 
foreign  money.  The  leading  newspaper  of  Vienna 
carried  a  full-page  advertisement  while  I  was  there, 
addressed,  "To  the  People  of  Austria"  and  signed, 
"A  Friend."  "If  you  must  sell,"  read  the  adver- 
tisement, "sell  only  for  food  and  actual  necessities 
of  life  or  for  materials  and  instruments  to  work  at 
your  trades." 

There  is  an  institution  in  Vienna  known  as  the 
Dorotheum.  It  is  a  big  stone  building,  with  many 
offices,  large  showrooms,  imposing  reception  rooms, 
and  a  general  air  of  security.  It  is  a  government 
pawnshop  founded  in  1707  by  Kaiser  Joseph  I.  It 
has  sixteen  branches  in  different  parts  of  Vienna; 

lor 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

and  the  amount  of  business  that  it  does  is  tremen- 
dous. I  went  in  and  took  a  look  at  the  people  who 
were  waiting  in  line  to  pawn  their  belongings,  and 
then  I  hunted  up  the  manager  and  asked  him  to  tell 
me  about  it. 

"In  the  old  days,"  said  the  manager,  "we  actually 
had  more  articles  pawned  with  us  each  week  than 
we  do  now;  but  the  reason  is  simple.  In  the  old 
days  the  people  who  patronized  us  most  were  work- 
ingmen.  They  would  come  on  Monday  and  pawn 
their  clothes.  On  Saturday  they  would  redeem 
them.  On  Sunday  they  would  wear  them  and  on 
Monday  they  would  come  and  pawn  them  again. 
This  went  on  week  after  week,  so  that  our  books 
showed  an  enormous  amount  of  business. 

' '  To-day  our  books  show  about  one  third  as  much 
business  as  before  the  war;  but  the  workingman 
comes  to  us  no  longer.  His  spare  clothes  have  gone 
for  good.  He  has  only  what  he  wears  on  his  back. 
He  has  nothing  to  pawn.  Now  the  people  who  come 
are  middle-class  people.  They  are  pawning  the  last 
of  their  possessions — either  the  things  that  they  have 
hitherto  treasured  too  much  to  pawn  or  the  things 
which  they  considered  useless.  And  they  never  re- 
deem. Never.  The  workmen  pawned  and  re- 
deemed each  week.  The  middle-class  people  pawn 
once,  and  that's  the  end. 

"The  people  who  come  now  are  ex-army  officers 
and  small  government  officials  and  physicians  and 
lawyers.  Their  misery  is  indescribable.  There  is 
one  infallible  sign  of  extreme  poverty,  and  that  is  a 
pawned  wedding  ring.  Scores  of  women  are  pawn- 
ing their  wedding  rings  each  day.     They  are  pawning 

102 


HUSKS 

them  to  get  food.  The  wedding  ring  is  always  the 
last  to  go.  I  know;  for  I  have  watched  the  people 
come  and  go  for  many  years.  When  a  person  has 
parted  with  everything  and  has  no  more  money  and 
can  get  no  food,  what  can  happen?" 

The  little  blue-uniformed  manager  of  the  Doro- 
theum  looked  at  me  with  worried  eyes.  Then  he 
asked  me  a  question  that  hundreds  of  Viennese  asked 
me  during  my  stay.  He  asked  because  he  really 
wanted  information.  He  asked  because,  like  all  the 
others,  he  didn't  know.  He  asked  because  he  was 
afraid. 

"What  do  you  think  will  become  of  us? "  he  asked. 
"What  do  you  think  is  going  to  happen  to  us?" 
There  was  no  trace  of  a  whimper  in  his  voice.  But 
he  was  afraid.  He  hoped,  as  did  the  others,  that  I 
would  have  a  consoling  answer  at  hand.  But  I  had 
no  answer. 

I  went  down  to  the  pawning  lines.  A  refined- 
looking  elderly  woman  pawned  ten  old  china  plates 
for  lo  crowns — enough  to  buy  one  egg.  A  young 
girl  pawned  a  silver  mesh  bag,  a  cigarette  case,  and 
a  silver  watch  for  800  crowns.  An  old  man  pawned 
three  kitchen  knives  and  a  pair  of  shears  for  20 
crowns,  or  the  equivalent  of  ten  street-car  rides. 
A  woman  pawned  a  wedding  ring  for  500  crowns. 
Another  woman  pawned  a  gorgeous  aquamarine 
with  a  diamond  at  each  corner  for  5,000  crowns — 
$16;  and  it  couldn't  have  been  bought  anywhere  in 
the  United  States  for  less  than  $700.  Another 
woman  pawned  a  baby's  silver  teething  ring  and  a 
silver  mug  for  50  crowns,  or  the  equivalent  of  one 
meal  at  a  cheap  restaurant.     No  wonder  they  ask 

103 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

what  is  going  to  become  of  them.     No  wonder  they 
find  the  problem  a  mystifying  one. 

Practically  the  only  individuals  in  the  city  of 
Vienna  who  are  receiving  good  food  are  the  very 
badly  undernourished  children,  who  are  being  fed  by 
the  American  Relief  Administration — the  Hoover 
people.  Not  all  the  Vienna  children  are  fed  by  the 
Americans;  merely  the  very  undernourished  ones 
under  the  age  of  fifteen.  In  Vienna,  for  example, 
there  are  340,000  children  under  fifteen  years  of  age. 
Of  these  children  332,540  are  undernourished — 
nearly  98  per  cent.  The  number  of  Vienna  children 
who  are  fed  by  the  Americans  each  day  is  147,000, 
or  about  44  per  cent.  In  all  Austria  there  are 
930,000  undernourished  children  under  fifteen  years 
of  age,  or  nearly  79  per  cent  of  the  total  number 
under  fifteen  years  old — 1,182,000.  In  all  Austria, 
including  Vienna,  the  Americans  feed  270,000 
children  every  day. 

The  four  Americans — all  former  army  or  navy 
officers — who  do  the  administrative  work  of  the 
child  feeding  are  thoroughly  trained  in  the  American 
and  the  Hoover  idea  of  hurdling  difficulties.  When 
necessary  they  work  all  night.  While  I  was  in 
Vienna  one  of  the  American  kitchens  burned  down 
at  night;  14,000  children  were  fed  by  that  kitchen. 
The  Americans  got  up  early  in  the  morning  and 
plowed  in  a  little  harder,  and  consequently  not  one 
of  the  14,000  children  lost  a  single  meal.  This  is 
not  the  Austrian  system.  The  Austrian  system  is 
based  on  the  theory  that  one  should  never  put  off 
until  to-morrow  anything  that  can  be  put  off  Tor  a 
couple  of  weeks.     In  Lower  Austria  there  is  a  peasant 

104 


HUSKS 

proverb  which  says,  "If  God  had  appointed  a 
Vienna  commissioner  to  create  the  world  it  would 
not  yet  have  been  created."  The  Americans  at- 
tached the  can  to  all  commissioners  who  got  in  their 
way.  For  a  time  they  were  hampered  by  a  com- 
mittee for  child  help  who  were  passionately  addicted 
to  a  form  of  vice  known  as  a  "Sitzung.'*  They 
would  get  the  Americans  over  to  the  Reichstag  and 
have  Sitzung  after  Sitzung.  A  Sitzung  consists  of 
sitting  round  a  table  and  giving  vent  to  a  lot  of  hot 
air  which  accomplishes  nothing. 

The  Americans  stood  these  Sitzungs  for  a  week, 
and  listened  carefully  to  protracted  discussions  con- 
cerning the  political  situation  in  Vorarlberg,  an 
Austrian  province  which  was  then  on  the  verge  of 
seceding  from  Austria  and  joining  Switzerland.  At 
the  end  of  the  week  the  head  of  the  American  Child 
Feeders  rose  to  his  feet  and  addressed  the  meeting. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  he,  "we  have  come  to  Austria 
to  feed  your  children.  Your  conversation  is  prob- 
ably of  some  value,  but  it  feeds  no  children.  Since 
you  cannot  come  to  any  decisions,  we  shall  act  as  the 
situation  seems  to  us  to  demand,  and  if  we  need  your 
advice  we  will  ask  for  it."  The  Americans  then 
walked  out  and  went  to  work.  They  never  went 
back.  The  committee,  having  nothing  to  sitzung 
about,  fell  into  decay  and  evaporated. 

The  Austrian  imagination  was  greatly  stimulated 
by  the  arrival  of  the  Hoover  people.  One  Austrian 
had  a  precious  scheme  for  solving  the  country's  food 
troubles  by  feeding  the  population  fruit  and  oatmeal. 
The  great  drawback  was  that  Austria  had  neither 
fruit  nor  oatmeal.  Another  Austrian  had  figured  that 

los 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

everything  could  be  fixed  by  turning  the  country 
over  to  the  wholesale  production  of  frogs.  The 
mayor  of  the  city  of  Baden,  who  evidently  was  under 
the  impression  that  America  was  going  in  so  keenly 
for  relief  work  that  it  would  even  support  Europe's 
hungry  live  stock,  addressed  a  long  letter  to  the 
"American  Animal  Stuff  Feeding  Commission"  and 
said  that  Baden  could  feed  its  children  if  the  Amer- 
icans would  help  the  city  raise  goats.  The  letter 
agreed  that  Baden  particularly  deserved  help  be- 
cause "every  year  before  the  war  broke  out  the 
municipality  of  Baden  put  the  big  assembly  rooms 
of  the  Kurhaus  and  the  public  playgrounds  at  the 
disposal  of  the  American  colony  for  the  celebration 
of  the  anniversary  of  the  Day  of  Independence; 
and  the  colony  was  always  received  at  Baden  by  the 
mayor." 

The  Hoover  representatives  attend  to  the  im- 
portation, the  distribution,  and  the  control  of  the 
American  food.  Doctor  Pirquet,  an  Austrian  who 
was  formerly  a  professor  at  Johns  Hopkins  Univer- 
sity, supervises  the  selection  of  the  undernourished 
children  to  be  fed.  Doctor  Pirquet  has  a  system 
for  determining  the  undernourishment  of  a  child; 
and  after  taking  a  child's  sitting  height  and  its  weight 
he  can  toy  with  the  figures  awhile  and  tell  you  the 
exact  dimensions  of  the  child's  intestines.  From 
this  he  evolves  the  child's  nourishment  in  terms  of 
figures.  Thus,  loo  is  the  average  figure  for  a  well- 
nourished  child;  105  is  the  figure  for  a  fat,  very 
well-nourished  child;  88  means  a  badly  nourished 
child;  and  85  a  very  badly  nourished  one.  Below 
85  a  child  needs  hospital  treatment;  and  if  its  nour- 

106 


HUSKS 

ishment  figure  gets  as  low  as  76  it  almost  invariably 
dies.  Doctor  Pirquet  divides  the  children  into  three 
classes:  badly  nourished,  quite  badly  nourished,  and 
very  badly  nourished.  This  last  class  of  children, 
known  as  Number  Three,  contains  those  whose 
nourishment  figures  are  as  low  as  85.  They  are 
the  ones  whom  the  Americans  feed. 

There  are  hundreds  of  feeding  stations  scattered 
over  the  city,  mostly  in  schools.  There  is  one  in 
Schonbrunn,  the  palace  of  the  ex-Emperor,  and 
another  in  Belvedere,  the  palace  of  the  Archduke 
Ferdinand,  who  was  assassinated  in  Sarajevo  in  19 14. 

I  don't  wish  anybody  any  hard  luck,  but  I  wish 
that  every  American  could  go  to  Vienna  Kitchen 
Number  Thirty-one,  where  the  American  Relief 
Administration  prepares  food  for  7,000  children  and 
feeds  3,000  on  the  premises,  so  that  he  could  have  an 
idea  of  the  good  that  has  been  accomplished  through 
the  efforts  of  the  man  to  whom  a  gruff  regular-army 
officer  in  Vienna  refers  as  "The  most  humane,  the 
best-informed,  the  most  practical,  and  the  biggest- 
brained  man  not  only  in  the  United  States,  but  in  the 
world  to-day — Herbert  Hoover."  Mr.  Hoover  has 
some  stanch  supporters  in  Central  Europe.  It  is 
due  entirely  to  Hoover's  conception  and  foresight 
that  the  children  of  Central  Europe  are  not  dying  off 
like  flies,  and  the  future  of  devastated,  discouraged, 
and  practically  bankrupt  Europe  will  not  be  left  in 
the  hands  of  a  generation  of  weaklings  and  inefficients. 

At  Kitchen  Number  Thirty-one  the  children  come 
into  the  feeding  station  in  long  lines — the  boys  on 
one  side  and  the  girls  on  another.  Each  one  carries 
a  cup  or  a  battered  pitcher  for  his  ration.     They  look 

8  107 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

somewhat  scrawny,  but  not  distressingly  so.  But 
their  clothes  are  very  bad.  A  large  percentage  of  the 
boys  are  dressed  in  old  Austrian  uniforms  cut  down 
to  fit  them.  Their  shoes  are  awful — mere  rags  of 
shoes,  broken  open  and  home  patched. 

The  day  on  which  I  visited  Kitchen  Number 
Thirty-one  was  cold  and  raw  and  rainy.  Just  out- 
side the  feeding  station  was  a  child  who  had  lost  his 
card.  He  had  no  shoes,  and  he  was  standing  bare- 
footed in  the  slush,  waiting  for  his  friends  to  come 
out.  They  don't  look  so  bad  until  one  asks  their 
ages.  Then  one  discovers  that  little  shrimps  of  boys, 
who  look  not  a  day  over  six  years  old,  are  ten 
and  twelve  and  thirteen  years  old.  Fourteen-year- 
old  children,  who  ought  to  be  fairly  sizable,  look 
just  about  large  enough  to  be  in  kindergarten  instead 
of  the  last  grade  of  the  grammar  school.  And 
children  who  look  as  though  they  had  just  learned  to 
talk  a  few  weeks  before  are  in  reality  seven  and 
eight  years  old. 

Several  children  were  wearing  clothes  of  a  peculiar 
texture.  We  asked  them  about  it.  They  were  the 
children  of  former  army  officers,  and  the  clothes 
were  made  out  of  window  curtains.  One  boy  was 
wearing  a  suit  made  out  of  one  of  his  mother's  old 
dresses.  Girls  in  many  instances  were  wearing 
dresses  which  had  been  made  from  tablecloths,  bed- 
spreads, and  the  heavy  stuff  which  the  Austrians 
hang  over  the  lower  part  of  their  windows  in  the 
winter  to  keep  out  draughts.  One  had  on  a  suit 
made  out  of  a  light-weight  carpet. 

I  was  in  Vienna  several  weeks.  I  got  one  piece  of 
butter;  but  there  were  three  weeks  when  I  couldn't 

xo8 


HUSKS 

buy  it.  White  bread  was  never  served  in  restaurants. 
For  about  200  crowns  one  could  occasionally  buy  a 
large  loaf  in  devious  and  underhand  ways;  and 
when  one  did  that  he  could  always  wrap  it  up  in  a 
newspaper  and  lug  it  with  him  whenever  he  went  to 
a  restaurant.  People  who  attended  select  dinner 
parties  would  appear  with  bundles  under  their  arms — 
bread  or  butter  which  they  had  bought  from  Schleich- 
handlers.  The  white  bread  was  always  made  with- 
out milk,  and  it  tasted  a  great  deal  like  well-ground 
birch  sawdust  in  a  semi-petrified  state.  There  was 
next  to  nothing  in  the  markets  except  evil-looking 
apples,  spinach,  cabbage,  and  beets.  The  markets 
whose  stalls  were  once  filled  with  the  finest  meats 
and  fresh  fish  displayed  occasional  attenuated  sec- 
tions of  strange  animals  and  a  few  pallid  and  sickly 
salted  fish,  but  their  prices  were  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  the  majority  of  Viennese.  For  example, 
corned  beef  cost  200  crowns  a  kilogram  in  January. 
A  kilogram  is  about  two  pounds — one  meal  for  a 
small  family.  If  a  family  had  only  one  such  piece 
of  meat  once  a  week  for  a  year,  the  total  cost  would 
be  10,400  crowns,  or  more  than  the  entire  year's 
salary  of  a  railway  conductor. 

The  children  whom  the  Americans  feed  receive 
each  day  a  cup  of  chocolate,  made  with  milk  and 
sweetened  with  sugar,  and  a  huge  slice  of  white  bread 
made  with  milk  and  honey,  or  something  equally 
good.  Possibly  an  Austrian  millionaire  could  have 
such  a  meal;  but  I  couldn't  buy  it  when  I  was  in 
Vienna — and  anyone  with  a  few  American  dollars 
in  Vienna  is  as  good  as  a  millionaire.  At  Kitchen 
Number  Thirty-one  the  supervisor  gave  me  a  cup  of 

109 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

chocolate  and  a  piece  of  bread  so  that  I  could  taste  it. 
I  affected  polite  interest.  I  ate  the  chocolate  and 
bread  in  rather  a  detached  way,  as  though  I  were 
merely  doing  it  to  put  the  supervisor  at  her  ease. 
But  it  was  the  first — and  it  was  the  only — real  food 
I  had  had  in  Vienna.  If  anyone  had  come  up  and 
tried  to  take  it  away  from  me  I  would  have  snarled 
and  snapped  at  him. 

The  hospitals  can't  feed  their  patients.  An 
Austrian  came  to  an  American  in  Vienna  to  ask  for 
help.  His  wife  had  tuberculosis.  She  was  in  a 
hospital.  For  breakfast  she  got  black  coffee;  at 
ten  o'clock  she  was  given  soup;  at  noon  she  had 
soup  and  black  bread;  for  dinner  at  night  she  re- 
ceived black  bread  and  black  coffee.  No  milk,  no 
fats,  no  delicacies.  There  are  thousands  and  thou- 
sands in  Vienna  on  the  same  diet. 

The  children  whom  the  Americans  feed  are  com- 
paratively well  off,  but  there  are  nearly  56  per  cent 
of  the  undernourished  Vienna  children  under  the  age 
of  fifteen  who  aren't  receiving  any  food  from  the 
American  kitchens.  And  in  all  Austria,  out  of  the 
total  number  of  undernourished  children  under 
fifteen  years  of  age,  71  per  cent  eat  what  their 
parents  are  able  to  buy  them.  Great  numbers  of 
people  must  live  on  their  government  food  rations; 
and  how  any  person  can  keep  life  in  his  body  on 
Vienna  food  rations  is  a  mystery.  Here's  what  one 
person  can  buy  at  government  prices:  3  pounds 
of  bread  a  week;  ^4  pound  of  flour;  yi  pound  of 
beans  or  peas ;  ]4,  pound  of  margarine — maybe,  and 
maybe  not;  '/s  pound  of  meat,  and  i  pound  of 
potatoes  every  other  week.     Lay  that  ^n;ount  of 

no 


HUSKS 

food  on  a  table  and  look  at  it.  It's  scarcely  a  square 
meal  for  a  small  dog.  If  a  New  York  woman  were 
told  that  her  Pomeranian  would  have  to  live  on  that 
amount  of  food  for  a  week  she'd  have  hysterics. 
There  are  thousands  of  Viennese  who  have  been 
living  on  such  rations  for  a  long,  long  time,  and 
who  may  have  to  live  on  them  for  a  much  longer 
time.  People  have  pawned  their  furniture,  their 
clothes,  their  carpets,  and  even  their  beds  to  buy 
food.  When  everything  has  gone  they  live  on  the 
government  rations  and  die  very  slowly.  The 
death  rate  among  children  from  tuberculosis  is  almost 
loo  per  cent  greater  than  before  the  war.  The  death 
rate  has  risen  to  such  an  extent  and  the  birth  rate 
has  fallen  so  abruptly  that  Doctor  Pirquet  estimates 
that  if  this  condition  should  continue  for  another 
fifteen  years  the  population  of  Vienna  would  be 
wiped  out.  I  have  heard  Americans  say:  "But 
people  can't  live  on  so  little  food !  It  can't  be  done ! " 
They  get  excited.  "If  they  are  trying  to  live  on 
that,  why  don't  they  go  away?"  they  say.  "Why 
don't  they  move  to  other  countries?  Why  don't 
they  get  land  in  the  country?  Why  don't  they  do 
something?"  Those  are  some  of  the  questions  they 
usually  ask;  and  they're  easily  answered.  They 
can't  go  away  because  they  haven't  enough  money 
to  go  with;  and,  besides,  other  countries  don't  want 
them.  There's  no  room  for  them  on  Austrian  farms. 
There's  nothing  that  they  can  do — ^but  starve  and 
hope  for  better  things. 

The  hoping,  I  don't  mind  saying,  is  at  a  very  low 
ebb  in  Vienna.  The  bulk  of  the  people  are  abso- 
lutely down  and  out.     I  walked  into  scores  of  homes 

III 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

in  search  of  information,  and  asked  the  most  inti- 
mate questions  concerning  their  finances  and  their 
manner  of  living.  Never  once  did  I  meet  with  a 
rebuff. 

I  have  no  room  in  this  chapter  for  the  scores  of 
cases  which  fill  my  notebooks.     I  can  quote  a  few: 

Baron  Rineland  was  an  officer  in  the  Austrian 
army.  Before  the  war  he  maintained  a  large  es- 
tablishment for  his  wife  and  twenty-year-old  daugh- 
ter. His  total  income  now,  from  pension  and  sal- 
ary, is  8,400  crowns  a  year.  It  takes  over  60,000 
crowns,  remember,  to  live  frugally.  He  sold  his 
horses ;  then  he  sold  his  silver ;  now  he  is  selling  his 
furniture.  His  daughter  gives  music  lessons  at 
6  crowns  a  lesson — 2  cents.  The  baroness  does  her 
own  work.  Comparatively  speaking,  they're  not 
badly  off,  though  they  get  their  food  at  the  Vienna 
public  feeding  stations. 

In  a  room  whose  temperature  was  around  thirty- 
eight  degrees  sat  a  woman  and  a  young  girl  making 
little  baskets  out  of  colored  tissue  paper.  The 
woman  was  the  wife  of  a  captain  in  the  Austrian 
army.  He  was  an  Austrian,  but  lived  in  Galicia, 
which  is  now  Poland.  His  wife  was  a  Viennese, 
but  by  marrying  a  man  who  lived  in  Galicia,  she 
now  ranks  as  a  Pole.  Every  Austrian  officer,  before 
marrying,  had  to  have  a  capital  of  48,000  crowns. 
Her  husband  had  only  24,000.  He  got  a  special 
dispensation  from  the  Emperor  to  marry  with  the 
24,000-crown  capital.  The  money  is  deposited  with 
the  government,  and  the  interest  comes  to  the 
couple.  The  husband  was  killed.  The  wife,  being 
a  Pole,  cannot  get  the  24,000  crowns,  which  through 

112 


HUSKS 

depreciation  is  now  worth  about  $So  instead  of  the 
$5,000  that  it  used  to  be  worth.  She  has  appHed 
to  change  her  citizenship,  but  she  can  get  no  action. 
She  has  two  children.  The  boy  is  over  fifteen  years 
of  age  and  therefore  cannot  be  fed  by  the  Americans. 
He  is  starving,  though  his  sister  deprives  herself  of 
food  for  him.  The  woman's  expenses  last  year  were 
11,690  crowns;  and  her  total  earnings  were  10,025. 
She  made  up  the  difference  by  selling  her  furniture 
and  belongings.  Her  earnings  will  be  the  same  this 
year,  but  her  expenses,  owing  to  increased  prices, 
will  be  much  higher.  She  and  her  two  children  live 
entirely  on  government  rations ;  week  after  week  they 
exist  on  bread,  beans,  and  cabbage.  The  average 
cost  per  week  is  250  crowns.  The  material  of  each 
basket  which  they  weave  costs  5  crowns,  and  they 
receive  9  crowns  for  it.  Each  one  takes  two  hours 
to  make.  She  wanted  only  two  things:  help  for 
her  son,  and  help  to  become  an  Austrian  citizen  so 
that  she  could  get  her  24,000  crowns.  My  taxicab, 
on  the  morning  that  I  visited  this  family,  happened 
to  cost  exactly  what  the  mother  spends  for  food  in 
one  week. 

Director  Amsuss  is  an  official  in  the  Court  of 
Justice.  He  is  paid  4,800  crowns  a  year.  For 
thirteen  years  he  was  in  the  navy,  so  he  also  receives 
a  pension  of  4,800  crowns,  making  a  total  of  9,600 
crowns.  He  had  a  wife  and  a  son  and  two  daughters. 
One  of  the  daughters,  Rosalie,  who  was  eleven  years 
old,  was  dying  of  starvation.  She  was  dying  in  the 
next  room.  You  have  probably  never  heard  a  child 
dying  of  starvation — or  seen  one.  I  hope  you  never 
will.     I  saw  Rosalie  Amsuss  and  heard  her.     Her 

113 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

face  was  like  a  bird's  skull,  and  every  little  while  she 
would  gasp  a  few  times.  I  think  I  shouted  at  the 
director  to  know  why  some  one  wasn't  doing  some- 
thing. I  think  I  may  have  sworn  quite  a  good  deal. 
I  asked  him  why  the  Americans  didn't  feed  the 
child.  He  said  that  they  had.  For  some  time  she 
had  gone  to  the  feeding  stations,  but  she  had  been 
too  undernourished.  Soon  she  had  had  to  go  to 
bed.  The  Americans  broke  their  rules  and  allowed 
food  to  be  taken  to  her,  and  the  doctor  from  the 
Americans  came  every  day,  but  it  was  no  use.  Now 
she  couldn't  eat — to-night  she  would  be  dead — he 
had  asked  for  an  advance  of  pay  to  bury  her.  There 
were  Christmas  greens  still  hanging  on  the  chande- 
lier, and  the  noonday  sun  threw  a  bright  splotch  on 
the  green  carpet — and  she  was  dying  of  starvation  in 
the  next  room.  Director  Amsuss  made  no  appeal 
for  help,  but  big  tears  welled  out  of  his  eyes  and 
ran  down  his  cheeks.  I  asked  him  if  there  was 
anything  I  could  do  for  Rosalie.  He  shook  his 
head.  She  wanted  nothing  but  rest  until  she 
died.  But  his  son — ^his  son  was  a  doctor  of  laws. 
He  was  thirty  years  old  and  received  4  crowns  a 
day — his  wife  had  just  had  a  baby — all  three  of 
them  were  starving. 

Four  crowns  a  day !    A  cent  and  a  third ! 

The  director  went  with  me  to  the  door,  Rosalie's 
mother  and  sister  came  to  say  good-by  and  when  they 
spoke  they  wept.  The  director  merely  said  that  it 
was  a  very  unhappy  world.  He  had  thought  that 
when  he  was  an  old  man  his  children  would  sustain 
him,  whereas  he  saw  them  dying  and  could  do 
nothing  to  help, 

U4 


HUSKS 

Every  apartment  house  has  its  tragedy — fre- 
quently its  scores  of  tragedies.  I  found  them  wher- 
ever I  turned. 

No  American  understands  how  the  people  endure 
these  things  silently.  No  outbreak  would  help  them; 
but  usually,  under  such  conditions,  people  resort  to 
violence. 

I  hunted  up  and  discussed  this  matter  with  Karl 
Tomann,  the  leader  of  the  Communist  or  Bolshevik 
party  in  Austria.  Tomann  is  a  short,  thin,  sallow- 
skinned,  nervous  man  about  thirty-five  years  old. 
He  was  in  the  Austrian  army  early  in  the  war. 
He  was  wounded  and  captured  on  the  Russian  front 
in  191 5,  was  sent  to  hospitals  in  Kieff  and  Moscow, 
and  was  then  sent  east  by  slow  stages  until  he 
reached  Omsk.  He  was  put  to  work  in  various  Ural 
mines,  and  after  that  he  was  made  a  farm  laborer. 
In  the  long  days  of  the  Siberian  summer,  he  said 
he  and  the  other  prisoners  were  made  to  work  from 
three  in  the  morning  until  eleven  at  night — twenty 
hours.  When  they  weakened  from  fatigue  they 
were  flogged.  With  Kerensky's  rise  to  power 
things  were  better  for  a  time,  but  eventually  much 
worse  than  under  the  Czar.  When  the  revolution 
came  he  was  freed  and  went  to  Moscow.  He  worked 
with  Lenine  in  person  from  April,  191 8,  to  December, 
191 8,  when  he  left  Russia  to  take  up  the  work  in 
Austria.  Speaking  of  Siberian  prisoners,  there  are 
thousands  still  in  Siberia.  They  have  been  there  for 
four  or  five  years.  They  can't  get  home.  So  far 
as  they  know,  they  may  be  there  for  life.  It's  rather 
tough  on  their  families. 

Tomann,  in  January,  was  in  almost  daily  com- 
115 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

munication  with  Moscow  by  courier.  He  was  re- 
ceiving regular  reports  from  the  Bolsheviks  in  the 
United  States. 

America,  Tomann  said,  was  far  more  ripe  for 
Bolshevism  than  is  Europe.  The  people  who  come 
back  from  America  say  that  the  outlook  is  good.  I 
asked  him  what  he  meant  by  good,  and  he  replied 
good  for  Bolshevism.  I  asked  him  if  he  was  sending 
agitators  to  America  as  well  as  getting  them  back. 
He  hesitated,  and  finally  refused  to  answer.  I  asked 
him  what  he  meant  by  saying  the  outlook  was  good 
for  Bolshevism  in  America.  He  said  the  high  rate 
of  exchange  made  it  impossible  for  Europe  to  buy 
from  America.  As  a  result  America  would  soon  be 
overproduced  and  the  factories  would  have  to  shut 
down,  thus  throwing  great  numbers  of  workmen  out 
of  positions.  When  this  happened  the  workmen 
would  go  Bolshevik.  He  looked  for  America  to  go 
Bolshevik  in  about  two  years'  time. 

Tomann  wasn't  at  all  convinced  of  America's 
idealism.  From  his  point  of  view  the  help  which 
America  was  giving  to  Austria  was  being  given 
by  American  capitalists  for  purely  capitalistic  rea- 
sons. They  will  help,  he  thinks,  just  so  long  as 
there  is  some  advantage  to  be  gained  from  helping. 
I  asked  him  what  advantages  he  was  talking  about. 
He  replied  that  there  were  two  things  to  be  dragged 
out  of  Austria.  One  was  the  waterworks,  the  other 
was  the  children,  who  in  the  future  will  be  able  to 
work  and  be  the  slaves  of  American  capital.  That's 
what  he  thought  American  capital  has  in  mind — ■ 
the  enslaving  of  the  Austrian  children.  I  told 
Tomann  that  I  supposed  he  thought  American  cap- 

ii6 


HUSKS 

ital  helped  the  victims  of  the  Messina  earthquake 
and  the  San  Francisco  fire  so  that  it  could  enslave 
the  Italian  and  the  Californian  children.  He  was 
full  of  some  ripe  Bolshevik  ideas,  was  Tomann — 
about  as  ripe  as  a  Roquefort  cheese. 

He  talked  himself  round  in  a  circle  about  as  rap- 
idly as  it  could  be  done.  Bolshevism  was  coming  in 
America  because  the  European  nations  couldn't  buy 
from  the  capitalists,  and  because  the  factories  would 
therefore  have  to  close  from  overproduction.  The 
capitalists  were  trying  to  avert  this,  but  couldn't. 
Note  that,  please;  and  then  note  the  following 
statements  which  Tomann  also  made:  Wilson  has 
been  disavowed  by  the  Senate,  which  is  composed 
of  capitalists.  He  was  disavowed  because  he  fa- 
vored the  League  of  Nations.  The  capitalists  con- 
sidered that  the  League  hindered  capitalist  expan- 
sion. Why  did  it  hamper  capitalist  expansion? 
Very  simple!  Because  it  was  founded  to  save  the 
impoverished  states  of  Europe  from  ruin.  The 
saving  of  them  would  have  cut  into  capitalistic 
pockets,  and  therefore  they  are  against  it.  Clear? 
It's  as  clear  as  a  hard-boiled  egg! 

"Look  here,  Tomann,"  said  I,  "if  the  capitalists 
could  save  the  impoverished  states  of  Europe  from 
ruin  the  states  could  buy  from  the  capitalists,  and 
then  none  of  the  factories  would  have  to  shut  down, 
and  America  would  be  in  no  danger  of  Bolshevism. 
How  about  that?" 

"The  war,"  replied  Tomann,  dodging  the  question 
nimbly,  "has  created  whole  poor  countries.  The 
war  was  caused  by  capitalistic-anarchistic  produc- 
tion. States  which  were  once  creditor  states  are  now 

117 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

debtor  states.  Practically  all  Americans  believe 
that  they  belong  to  the  class  which  possesses  money ; 
and  they  think  that  Bolshevism  won't  come  because 
the  workmen  don't  suffer." 

"Whither  do  we  drift?"  I  asked.  "Let's  get  off 
that  capitalistic-anarchistic  stuff  and  get  back  to 
talk  that  means  something.  Why  doesn't  Austria 
go  Bolshevik?" 

"Capitalism,"  Tomann  answered,  ignoring  my 
question,  "can  never  help  Austria.  The  feeding  of 
children  by  Americans  may  avert  an  immediate 
revolution,  but  it  can  have  no  lasting  good." 

"Well,"  said  I,  "is  it  better  to  let  the  children 
starve  and  have  a  revolution,  or  feed  the  children 
and  avert  a  revolution  ? ' ' 

"That  question  is  difficult  to  answer,"  said 
Tomann.  "Feeding  the  children  is  a  great  bene- 
ficial action  at  the  moment,  but  it  can  have  no  last- 
ing good.  I  am  against  the  extension  of  credits  to 
Austria,  but  I  am  neither  for  nor  against  the  feeding 
of  the  people." 

"What  do  you  mean — neither  for  nor  against?" 
I  asked.  "You  are  either  for  or  against  everything. 
You  like  dogs  or  you  don't  like  dogs;  you  are  in 
favor  of  rotten  eggs  or  you  are  not  in  favor  of 
them;  you  think  Emma  Goldman  is  either  a  help 
or  a  hindrance  to  society." 

"Ah  yes,"  said  Tomann.  "That  is  a  very  im- 
portant point.  In  theory  I  am  against  feeding, 
because  it  is  not  good  that  a  poor  man's  child  should 
receive  alms.  But  in  this  instance  I  am  forced  to 
disregard  my  theories.  Theoretically  I'm  against  it, 
but  actually  I'm  not." 

ii8 


HUSKS 

"And  why,"  I  repeated,  "doesn't  Austria  go 
Bolshevik?" 

"We  are  waiting  for  some  neighboring  nation  to 
go,"  he  said.  "Our  greatest  hope  is  Italy.  When 
she  goes  Austria  will  go." 

"You  had  a  grand  chance,"  I  reminded  him, 
"when  Hungary  went  Bolshevik  on  one  side  of  you 
and  Bavaria  set  up  a  people's  republic  on  the  other 
side.     What  more  could  you  want  than  that?" 

"The  time  was  not  ripe,"  said  Tomann,  passing 
his  hand  wearily  over  his  brow.  "And  now  I  have 
much  work  to  do."     So  I  came  away. 

But  even  the  weakness  and  stupidity  of  the  Bol- 
shevik leaders  and  the  smallness  of  the  Bolshevik 
party  in  Austria  do  not  explain  why  the  people 
do  not  rise  in  rage  against  the  intolerable  conditions 
under  which  they  are  living. 

The  American  Relief  Warehouse  in  Vienna  will 
do  much  to  relieve  misery  and  distress.  This 
scheme,  which  was  worked  out  by  Hoover,  makes  it 
possible  for  a  person  in  the  United  States  to  buy  a 
food  draft  at  an  American  bank.  This  draft  is  sent 
to  some  person  in  Vienna  by  registered  mail,  and 
that  person  presents  it  at  the  American  Relief 
Warehouse  and  receives  good  American  food  for  it. 
If  money  alone  were  sent,  he  couldn't  buy  decent 
food  in  the  open  market.  In  the  first  ten  days  after 
the  announcement  of  the  new  warehouse  scheme 
140,000  Viennese  sent  postcards  to  relatives  and 
friends  in  America  asking  that  food  drafts  be  sent 
to  them. 

Austria  is  a  little  country,  but  she  holds  about  as 
much  misery  to  the  square  inch  as  any  other  nation 

119 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

ever  held.  The  Peace  Conference,  as  I  said  at  the 
beginning,  has  stripped  her  of  everything  she  needs 
in  order  to  exist,  but  it  has  left  her  with  enough 
hunger  to  supply  all  the  other  nations  with  a  liberal 
amount.  It's  the  only  thorough  and  complete  job 
that  the  Peace  Conference  did. 


Ill 

HANDING  IT  BACK 

JET  us  suppose  that  a  low  tennis  shoe  of  the 
Lrf  variety  famiHarly  known  as  a  sneaker  has  been 
worn  for  a  number  of  months  until  it  has  become 
soft  and  flabby  and  slightly  bulged  in  spots.  Let 
us  then  suppose  that  a  dog  has  joyously  discovered 
this  sneaker  and  appropriated  it  and  dragged  it 
round  by  the  toe  in  a  spirit  of  gay  and  careless 
abandon  until  the  toe  has  been  bent  down — down 
dejectedly.  After  this  maltreatment  the  profile 
of  the  sneaker  would  be  very  similar  to  the  Czecho- 
slovak state  as  it  appears  on  all  maps  issued  since 
the  Peace  Conference  took  its  first  convulsive  and 
enormously  successful  steps  toward  making  a  mess 
of  Europe.  The  heel  of  the  Czechoslovak  sneaker 
rests  heavily  on  Austria.  The  rear  end  of  it — ^and 
the  opening  at  the  top  through  which  the  foot  is 
inserted — snuggles  into  Germany.  The  eyelets  for 
the  shoe  laces  are  the  rich  coal  districts  of  Upper 
Silesia  and  Teschen.  Poland  presses  down  on  the 
eyelets  and  on  the  entire  toe.  The  ball  of  the  shoe 
rubs  irritatingly  on  Hungary,  and  the  tip  of  the 
toe  is  applied  snugly  to  Rumania. 
Such  a  wealth  of  technical  detail  is,  I  fear,  apt  to 

121 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

confuse  and  bore  the  reader.  But  the  condition 
which  exists  within  Czechoslovakia  is  so  closely- 
connected  with  the  peculiarly  wandering  shape  of  the 
country  that  I  am  forced  to  be  technical  against 
my  better  judgment. 

Czechoslovakia,  then,  is  shaped  like  an  old  tennis 
shoe  which  has  undergone  great  vicissitudes.  The 
heel  section  is  a  bowl  rimmed  with  hills  and  moun- 
tains. At  the  bottom  of  the  bowl,  which  goes  by  the 
name  of  Czeski  or  Bohemia  or  Bohmen,  live  the 
Czechs,  or  Bohemians — 6,000,000  of  them;  and  on 
the  rim  of  the  bowl,  forming  a  palpitating  and 
irregular  fringe  to  the  6,000,000  Czechs,  live  3,000,- 
000  Germans.  The  Germans  do  not  care  for  the 
Czechs.  They  hate  them  in  good  German  fashion. 
Nor  is  the  hating  in  Central  Europe  confined  to  the 
Germans  alone.  The  Czechs  are  also  first-class 
haters.  Say  what  you  will  about  the  peoples  of 
Central  Europe,  but  do  not  try  to  cast  any  reflections 
on  their  hating  abilities. 

So  the  Czechs  and  the  Germans  in  the  heel  section 
of  Czechoslovakia  hate  one  another.  It  would  be 
unfair  to  say  that  the  Germans  hate  the  Czechs 
more  than  the  Czechs  hate  the  Germans.  In  any 
sort  of  official  hating  contest  they  would  probably 
tie  for  first  place,  along  with  all  the  other  dominant 
nationalities  in  Central  Europe.  Some  people  in 
that  section  of  the  world  talk  loosely  about  an 
organization  of  countries  which  shall  be  known  as 
the  Danube  Federation,  but  such  an  organization,  I 
believe,  might  more  expressively  be  termed  the 
United  Hates  of  Central  Europe.  The  Czechs  hate 
the  Germans  in  the  heel  of  the  shoe  because  the 

122 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

Germans  for  many  hundreds  of  years  oppressed  or 
tried  to  oppress  or  talked  about  oppressing  them. 
And  the  Germans  hate  the  Czechs  because  the 
Czechs  are  giving  them  a  Httle  taste  of  their  own 
medicine.  They  are,  as  the  uncultured  sometimes 
remark,  handing  it  back  to  the  Germans.  The 
Germans  are  not — or  were  not  in  February,  1920, 
when  I  visited  Czechoslovakia — allowed  to  have  a 
voice  in  the  framing  of  the  laws  under  which  they 
must  live;  and  the  Czechs  frowned  on  anyone  who 
spoke  German.  They  instructed  German  business 
houses  to  write  letters  in  the  Czech  language,  and 
to  cut  out  the  German.  The  Germans  were  getting 
up  an  hour  earlier  every  morning  and  going  to  bed 
an  hour  later  every  evening  so  that  they  could 
indulge  in  as  much  daily  hate  against  the  Czechs 
as  the  situation  seemed  to  them  to  demand. 

The  toe  section  of  the  shoe  is  Slovensko,  or  Slo- 
vakia, which  is  inhabited  largely  by  Slovaks.  There 
are  about  2,000,000  Slovaks  in  the  toe  section.  But 
along  the  sole  of  the  shoe  there  are  upward  of 
700,000  Hungarians,  or  Magyars,  all  busy  at  the 
great  Central  European  pastime  of  hating.  Strangely 
enough,  the  Hungarians  do  not  hate  the  Slovaks. 
But  they  are  filled  with  a  passionate  and  searing 
hate  for  the  Czechs  who  have  come  down  into 
Slovakia  to  rule  the  Slovaks  and  the  Germans  and 
the  Hungarians  and  anyone  else  who  may  happen 
to  be  within  the  boundaries  of  Slovakia.  The 
Hungarians  hate  the  Czechs  because  they  have  come 
down  out  of  Bohemia  and  driven  about  15,000 
Hungarians  out  of  Presburg,  the  ancient  Hungarian 
capital  on  the  Danube,  where  the  kings  of  Hungary 

9  123 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

were  crowned  for  upward  of  four  hundred  years. 
They  hate  them  because  they  have  seized  some  very 
choice  territory  which  Hungary  claims  has  always 
been  Hungarian  and  is  Hungarian  and  always  will 
be  Hungarian. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  the  Czechs  endure  all 
this  hating  with  equanimity.  It  is  not  the  custom 
of  Central  European  nations  to  turn  the  other  cheek 
or  love  their  neighbors  as  themselves  or  anything 
like  that.  Any  nation  that  turns  the  other  cheek  in 
Central  Europe  is  almost  sure  to  have  its  ear  torn 
off,  its  eye  blackened,  and  its  gold-plated  collar 
button  and  its  moss-agate  cuff  links  purloined  before 
it  can  say  Jack  Robinson,  or  even  refer  warningly 
to  that  august  assemblage,  the  Peace  Conference. 
Many  people  ask  why  it  is  that  the  Peace  Conference 
should  be  referred  to  as  an  august  assemblage  or  an 
august  body.  The  reason  is  very  simple.  August  is 
a  month  which  makes  everybody  in  Central  Europe 
hot,  and  so  does  the  Peace  Conference. 

But  as  I  was  saying,  the  Czechs  do  not  remain 
quiescent  under  the  storm  of  Hungarian  hate.  No 
Hungarian  can  outhate  a  Czech  so  long  as  the 
Czech's  hater  has  a  single  cylinder  on  which  to  run. 
The  Czechs  not  only  hate  the  Hungarians  in  return, 
but  they  advertise  their  hates  extensively.  Late 
in  February,  1920,  in  the  second  year  following  the 
great  war,  the  Czechs  had  erected  on  the  Hungarian- 
Slovakian  border  before  Presburg  great  stretches  of 
barbed- wire  entanglements,  twenty  feet  in  width, 
against  the  Hungarians;  and  behind  the  entangle- 
ments they  had  dug  trenches  of  the  most  approved 
design,  and  at  fifty-yard  intervals  there  were  ma- 

124 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

chine  guns.  Along  the  roads  there  were  Czech 
trenches  and  barbed  wire,  as  well  as  along  the  electric 
railways  and  the  railroad;  while  for  miles  up  and 
down  the  Danube  the  bushes  on  the  river  bank  were 
laced  and  entwined  with  Czech  barbed  wire. 

There  were  Czech  guards  and  Czech  sentries  every- 
where; and  when  I  started  down  the  Danube  from 
Presburg  to  Budapest  I  saw  an  American  woman  in 
imiform — a  duly  accredited  worker  for  an  American 
relief  organization — being  searched  down  to  the  skin 
by  a  woman  searcher  on  the  orders  of  Czech  customs 
officials. 

The  situation  is  complicated  in  Slovakia  by  a 
number  of  fairly  well-developed  hates  which  exist 
between  the  Slovaks  and  the  Czechs. 

The  Czechs  and  the  Slovaks  are  both  Slav  races, 
but  they  are  divided  by  the  Little  Carpathian  Moun- 
tains which  run  diagonally  across  the  country  from 
the  top  of  the  shoe  laces  to  the  front  edge  of  the 
heel,  so  that  there  is  a  natural  division  between  the 
two  peoples  in  spite  of  the  similarity  between  their 
languages.  But  there  are  other  serious  differences; 
such,  for  example,  as  the  difference  in  character. 
The  Slovaks  are  hard-working,  patient,  ignorant, 
lovable,  conservative,  and  very  religious  people. 
The  Czechs  are  hard,  socialistically  inclined,  and 
rather  contemptuous  of  religion. 

The  Czechs  are  running  Slovakia,  and  Slovakia 
is  full  of  Czech  officials.  Like  all  sociaHsts,  the 
Czechs  want  to  socialize  everything  in  sight,  and  the 
Slovaks  are  not  poignantly  eager  to  be  socialized. 
Slovakia  is  full  of  Czech  soldiers.  There  is  friction 
here  and  friction  there ;  friction  over  this  and  friction 

125 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

over  that.  The  Czechs  are  amateurs  in  some  lines 
of  endeavor,  but  they  are  highly  gifted  in  the  art  of 
rubbing  everybody  the  wrong  way. 

Possibly  a  great  deal  of  this  is  due  to  the  sudden 
exaggeration  of  national  feeling  which  has  swept  over 
the  Czechs  in  the  first  flush  of  their  freedom,  so 
that  Czech  culture  and  Czech  ideas  and  the  Czech 
language  and  the  Czech  people  seem  to  them  the 
finest  and  most  beautiful  things  in  all  the  world; 
and  possibly  this  national  feeling  will  become  less 
pronounced  with  the  passage  of  time.  But  what- 
ever the  reason,  there  is  friction  in  Slovakia  between 
the  Slovaks  and  the  Czechs,  as  well  as  a  vicious, 
penetrating,  outsize,  hair-raising  hate  between  the 
Czechs  and  the  Hungarians.  Since  the  Czech  press 
agents,  of  whom  there  are  many,  will  damn  me  in 
ear-splitting  tones  and  call  me  upward  of  fifty-seven 
different  varieties  of  a  liar  for  these  statements,  I  will 
return  to  them  and  elaborate  on  them  at  another 
point  in  my  narrative. 

The  extreme  toe  of  the  Czechoslovak  shoe  is  the 
supposedly  self-governing  state  of  Rusinia,  or  Car- 
pathian Russia,  inhabited  by  some  700,000  Rusins, 
or  Ruthenians,  or  Little  Russians.  The  Rusins  have 
always  been  known  as  Ruthenians,  but  as  soon  as 
they  obtained  their  freedom  they  decided  that  they 
wanted  to  be  known  as  Rusins.  I  do  not  know  why 
this  is  so,  and  neither,  apparently,  do  the  Rusins. 
But  if  they  wish  to  be  called  Rusins  they  should  be 
called  Rusins,  for  that  advantage  appears  to  be 
the  only  one  which  the  Rusins  obtained  from  the 
Great  War  and  the  tireless  activities  of  the  Peace 

Conference. 

126 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

I  have  no  doubt  that  the  average  American  is  in 
the  same  box  as  myself  as  regards  Rusinia.  I  had 
not  only  never  heard  of  it  before  starting  my  Euro- 
pean wanderings,  but  after  I  had  heard  of  it  I 
couldn't  find  it  on  a  map.  None  the  less,  there  are 
700,000  of  these  Rusins;  and  the  supposedly  self- 
governing  state  of  Rusinia  forms  the  extreme,  down- 
drooping  toe  of  the  Czechoslovak  sneaker;  and  it 
has — or  it  did  have  in  February,  1920 — an  American 
president.  I  am  going  to  tell  you  about  Rusinia 
at  greater  length  than  its  size  and  importance 
deserve,  because  its  story  forms  a  remarkably  fine 
advertisement  for  the  extreme  acuteness,  omnis- 
cience, fair-mindedness,  augustness,  and  studiousness 
of  the  Peace  Conference.  It  also  forms  an  excellent 
groundwork  for  a  three-act  comedy.  Nothing  is 
lacking.  You  have  the  young  American  who  talks 
Pittsburgh  slang  and  becomes  president  of  a  Central 
European  state ;  you  have  the  natives  in  picturesque 
embroidered  vests,  high  black  boots,  and  loose  white 
pants  with  fringes  on  the  bottom;  you  have  an  old 
castle  on  a  hilltop  in  the  dual  capacity  of  seminary 
and  a  president's  home;  you  have  equal  parts  of 
intrigue  and  scenery;  you  have  everything,  in  fact, 
except  Mr.  George  M.  Cohan. 

The  northern  boundary  of  the  toe  of  the  Czecho- 
slovak sneaker  is  the  Carpathian  Mountains.  On 
the  southern  side  of  the  mountains  live  the  Rusins. 
On  the  northern  side  of  the  mountains,  in  that 
section  of  Poland  known  as  Galicia,  are  the  Rutheni- 
ans.  The  Ruthenians  and  the  Rusins  are  the  same 
people,  but  they  can't  get  together,  because  of  the 
mountains    between    them.     If    each    Rusin    were 

127 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

equipped  with  an  airplane  he  could  hold  regular 
communication  with  the  Ruthenians  across  the 
mountains.  Not  having  airplanes,  the  Ruthenians 
and  the  Rusins  cannot  mix. 

Not  being  able  to  trade  or  mingle  with  their  blood 
brothers  on  the  northern  side  of  the  mountains,  the 
Rusins  had  all  their  dealings  with  the  Hungarians 
to  the  south.  Rusinia  is  practically  a  solid  mass  of 
mountains,  which  are  covered  with  pine  forests. 
The  valleys,  all  of  them,  run  down  into  Hungary. 
The  Rusins  took  their  wood  down  the  valleys,  which 
was  the  only  direction  in  which  they  could  take  it, 
and  sold  it  to  the  Hungarians;  and  the  Rusin 
peasants  went  down  into  the  fertile  Hungarian  plains 
each  year,  helped  to  gather  the  harvests  on  the 
Hungarian  farms,  and  went  back  into  Rusinia  each 
autumn  with  enough  foodstuffs  to  last  them  through 
the  winter — foodstuffs  which  the  mountainous  na- 
ture of  their  own  land  made  it  impossible  for  them 
to  raise.  Rusinia  was  a  part  of  Hungary.  Hun- 
gary depended  on  Rusinia  for  pine  wood  for  building 
and  for  mine  timbers,  and  the  Rusins  depended  on 
Hungary  for  their  food.  The  Rusins  had  no  deaHngs 
with  the  Czechs  and  no  dealings  with  the  Slovaks. 

The  Rusins  have  always  been  much  given  to  emi- 
grating to  the  United  States.  There  are  700,000 
Rusins  in  Rusinia,  and  in  the  United  States  there 
are  another  500,000  of  them.  During  the  time  that 
America  stayed  neutral  the  Rusins  in  America  seemed 
unconcerned  over  the  1-and  of  their  birth.  But  as 
soon  as  President  Wilson  came  out  with  his  pregnant 
remarks  concerning  the  rights  of  small  nations  the 
American  Rusins  sat  up  and  took  notice.     They 

128 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

decided  immediately  that  they  wanted  Rusinia  to  be 
free.  Never  before  had  this  idea  attained  any 
prominence  in  Rusin  circles.  But  President  Wilson's 
remarks  filled  every  Rusin-American  breast  with  a 
passionate  longing  for  a  free  Rusinia.  This  move- 
ment originated  in  America  and  stayed  right  where  it 
started  for  a  long,  long  time.  The  Rusins  in  Rusinia 
knew  nothing  about  it.  In  June,  191 8,  the  Rusins 
in  America  got  together  and  elected  an  American 
National  Council  of  Uhro-Rusins,  and  toward  the 
end  of  July  the  twenty-three  members  of  this  council 
met  and  prepared  a  memorandum  to  be  presented  to 
President  Wilson.  This  memorandum  demanded 
complete  independence,  or  at  least  autonomy,  for 
Rusinia.  Having  prepared  this  memorandum,  the 
Rusin  councilors  did  nothing  for  nearly  three  months. 
But  at  the  end  of  that  time  they  held  another 
meeting  and  elected  as  representative  a  young  man 
named  Gregory  Satkovich.  By  so  doing  they  in- 
jected upward  of  seven  quarts  of  jazz  into  the  move- 
ment for  Rusin  independence,  and  the  movement 
immediately  attained  such  impetus  that  almost  no- 
body who  originally  laid  hands  on  it  has  since  been 
able  to  let  go  of  it. 

Gregory  Satkovich  is  a  Pittsburgh  lawyer.  He 
was  born  in  Holubina,  Rusinia,  in  1886.  His  father 
was  a  notary  and  the  head  man  of  a  small  district. 
The  elder  Satkovich  was  very  pro-Russian  in  his 
beliefs,  and  since  Rusinia  was  a  part  of  Hungary  the 
Hungarians  could  see  very  little  advantage  in  his 
pro-Russian  views.  Consequently  they  made  things 
unpleasant  for  him  and  he  promptly  packed  up  and 
emigrated  to  America.     That  was  in  1890.     In  1891 

129 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

he  sent  back  to  Rusinia  for  his  wife  and  the  six 
children,  and  the  whole  Satkovich  family  moved  to 
America.  The  elder  Satkovich  edited  a  Rusin  news- 
paper in  Homestead,  Pennsylvania,  for  twenty-five 
years.  The  children  received  good  schooling.  Greg- 
ory, who  was  next  to  the  youngest,  went  to  the 
De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  in  New  York,  and  then 
to  Duquesne  University,  where  he  received  an 
A.B.  degree  in  1907.  In  19 10  he  was  graduated 
from  the  University  of  Pennsylvania  Law  School. 
He  was  admitted  to  the  Pennsylvania  bar  the  same 
year,  and  practiced  steadily  until  he  got  tangled 
up  with  the  movement  for  Rusin  independence  in 
October,  191 8. 

Prior  to  October,  191 8,  Gregory  Satkovich  was  con- 
cerned only  with  such  things  as  the  independence  of 
the  Satkovich  family,  the  batting  average  of  Honus 
Wagner,  and  the  annoying  rise  in  the  price  of  lamb 
chops.  But  with  his  election  to  the  American 
National  Council  of  Uhro-Rusins  his  mind  was 
promptly  filled  with  plans  for  a  free  Rusinia.  He 
was  a  solid  American  citizen,  Rusinia  was  only  a 
name  to  him,  for  he  had  left  the  country  when  he 
was  five  years  old.  He  didn't  know  what  the 
Rusins  in  Rusinia  wanted,  or  why  Rusinia  should  be 
free,  but  he  was  a  young  American  and  an  energetic 
American,  and  he  had  been  elected  to  an  organiza- 
tion that  was  trying  to  get  freedom  for  Rusinia. 
So  he  threw  up  his  law  practice  and  sailed  into  the 
job  of  obtaining  Rusin  independence. 

He  translated  the  memorandum  of  the  national 
council  into  English,  gathered  a  few  prominent 
Ilusins,  and  rushed  to  Washington.    He  s^w  McAdoo. 

J30 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

He  saw  his  Congressman.  And  on  October  21st 
he  saw  President  Wilson  in  the  Blue  Room. 

"Dog-gone!"  said  Mr.  Satkovich,  reminiscently, 
as  we  sat  together  over  a  pitcher  of  beer  in  the 
capital  of  Czechoslovakia.  "Dog-gone!  I  remem- 
ber it  yet!  I  was  spokesman.  I  slipped  him  the 
memorandum.  He  took  to  it  very  kindly  and 
promised  to  help  us.  He  said  we  couldn't  be  in- 
dependent, but  he  promised  to  help  us  get  our 
autonomy .     Dog-gone ! ' ' 

The  Rusins  of  America  then  asked  President 
Wilson  for  help,  and  President  Wilson  promised  to 
assist  Rusinia  in  becoming  autonomous.  President 
Wilson  also  thought  it  would  be  expedient  for  the 
Rusins  to  seek  membership  in  the  Mid-European 
Union — a  union  of  eleven  small  nationalities  of 
Middle  Europe  who  were  banded  together  in 
America  for  the  purpose  of  cementing  the  moral  and 
material  forces  of  small  oppressed  nationalities 
against  the  enemies  of  the  Entente.  The  president 
of  this  Mid-European  Union  was  Thomas  G. 
Masaryk,  who  is  now  President  of  Czechoslovakia. 
So  the  Rusins  sought  membership  in  this  union,  and 
requested  recognition  of  Rusinia  as  a  separate 
nationality.  All  this  was  graciously  granted  by  the 
Mid-European  Union  on  October  23,  191 8. 

In  November  the  Rusins  in  America  decided  that 
Rusinia  should  line  up  with  Czechoslovakia  as  an 
autonomous  state.  A  plebiscite  of  Rusins  in  Amer- 
ica was  held,  and  showed  that  66  per  cent  were  in 
favor  of  joining  the  Czechs,  20  per  cent  were  in 
favor  of  joining  the  Ruthenians,  and  that  the  rest 
favored  being  just  plain  independent,    And  a,ll  the 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

while  the  Rusins  in  Rusinia  were  plodding  along  in 
the  same  old  way — just  Rusing  along,  so  to  speak. 

In  February,  191 9,  Mr.  Satkovich,  accompanied 
by  one  other  Rusin- American,  arrived  in  Paris  and 
submitted  the  results  of  the  plebiscite  to  that  august 
body,  the  Peace  Conference.  The  august  body  ac- 
cepted the  plebiscite,  and  as  a  result  Rusinia  became 
an  autonomous  state  under  Czechoslovakia. 

When  President  Satkovich  told  me  the  story  of 
Rusinia's  rise  he  didn't  refer  to  the  Peace  Conference 
as  an  august  body.  His  opinion  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference for  accepting  the  plebiscite  was  not  high. 

"What,"  I  asked  President  Satkovich,  "did  the 
men  in  Paris  know  about  Rusinia  or  about  the  merits 
of  Rusinia's  claims?" 

"Not  a  damned  thing,"  said  President  Satkovich. 

So  Rusinia  became  an  autonomous  state  under 
Czechoslovakia,  and  Mr.  Satkovich  went  down  to 
Uzhorod,  the  capital  of  Rusinia,  to  break  the  glad 
news  to  the  native  Rusins. 

He  had  his  troubles  traveling  through  Czecho- 
slovakia, as  almost  everyone  does.  The  Czechs 
don't  make  it  easy  for  travelers  even  now.  When 
Mr.  Satkovich  was  doing  his  traveling  the  Hun- 
garians in  Slovakia  were  celebrating  a  national 
holiday  and  were  on  the  verge  of  rebelling  against 
the  Czech  soldiers  who  were  scattered  promiscu- 
ously over  the  countryside.  The  Czech  soldiers 
were,  consequently,  not  only  on  the  qui  vive,  but 
were  jumping  nervously  up  and  down  on  it.  Once 
when  the  Satkovich  automobile  didn't  stop  quickly 
enough  they  shot  his  rear  tires  full  of  holes. 

"Boy,  oh,  boy!"  said  President  Satkovich,  in 
132 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

describing  the  incident,  "I  certainly  thought  they 
had  me  dead!" 

But  they  didn't.  He  reached  the  capital  of 
Rusinia  at  night.  It  was  dark  and  lonesome.  He 
climbed  up  the  hill  to  the  castle,  which  was  built 
some  seven  hundred  years  ago  and  is  still  habitable. 
His  cousin  lived  in  it,  being  connected  with  the 
seminary  which  now  occupies  it.  His  cousin  didn't 
know  him.  So  he  introduced  himself  and  announced 
that  he  had  come  to  tell  the  Rusins  that  they  were 
free.  His  cousin  was  unimpressed.  It  was  a  de- 
pressing evening. 

In  the  morning  when  Mr.  Satkovich  rose  and 
looked  out  of  the  window  of  his  medieval  bed- 
chamber he  looked  down  on  the  Ung  River,  stretch- 
ing straight  down  the  valley  from  the  castle.  It  was 
a  lovely  castle.  It  was  a  lovely  view,  but  it  was 
somewhat  impaired  by  the  fact  that  the  Hungarian 
Bolsheviks  were  in  the  valley,  and  that  the  Czechs 
were  holding  one  side  of  the  river  while  the  Bol- 
sheviks held  the  other.  The  lines  were  being  held 
by  agreement,  and  there  was  no  fighting.  But 
every  little  while  one  of  the  Czechs  in  an  outburst 
of  national  enthusiasm  would  empty  his  rifle,  and  the 
bullet  would  usually  hit  the  castle.  So  Mr.  Sat- 
kovich left  the  castle  and  went  down  into  the  town 
and  informed  the  Rusins  that  they  were  free.  They 
were  pleased  with  the  news,  but  they  doubted  it. 

Eventually  they  believed.  The  work  of  their 
American  brothers  was  highly  commended.  Mr. 
Satkovich  was  made  President  of  the  Directorate 
of  Rusinia. 

President  Satkovich  is  paid  5,000  Czechoslovak 
133 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

crowns  a  month,  and  that  amount,  when  I  met  him 
in  February,  1920,  was  equal  to  about  65  American 
dollars. 

"I  have  to  dig  into  my  own  pocket  every  month," 
he  said,  sadly.  "If  I  hadn't  salted  away  some  coin 
before  I  came  over  here  the  country  would  have  gone 
bankrupt  long  ago" 

Since  the  population  of  Rusinia  is  more  than  80 
per  cent  ilUterate,  the  ordinary  type  of  election 
ballot  can't  be  used.  President  Satkovich  has  de- 
vised a  new  sort — a  regular  American  ballot,  with  a 
photograph  in  place  of  every  name.  If  a  voter 
hasn't  met  a  candidate  he  must  vote  according  to  the 
manner  in  which  he  is  impressed  by  the  candidate's 
picture.  If  he  leans  toward  socialism  he  picks  the 
hardest-looking  picture. 

The  photographic  ballot  gives  rise  to  some  delicate 
problems.  Shall  it  be  illegal  for  a  candidate  to  have 
his  photograph  retouched?  Shall  he  be  permitted 
to  be  photographed  in  his  Sunday  clothes,  or  will  he 
be  obliged  to  wear  his  everyday  garments?  Shall 
the  picture  be  full  length,  exposing  the  wrinkles  in 
the  trousers,  or  shall  it  be  only  head  and  shoulders, 
exposing  the  wrinkles  round  the  ears?  These  are 
questions  which  cannot  be  answered  offhand. 

President  Satkovich  said  that  Rusinia  was  going 
to  have  a  parliament  and  a  constitution  modeled 
after  one  of  our  state  constitutions.  I  asked  him  on 
what  state  constitution  the  Rusin  constitution  would 
be  modeled. 

"Pennsylvania,  I  suppose,"  said  he.  "It's  the 
only  one  I  know  anything  about,  but  it's  so  dog- 
gone rotten  that  I  hate  to  use  it  for  a  model." 

134 


HANDING  IT  BACK. 

He  has  five  Cabinet  ministers :  a  Minister  or  Direc- 
tor of  Culture,  a  Minister  of  the  Interior,  a  Minister 
of  Finance,  a  Minister  of  Law,  and  lastly,  a  Minister 
of  Religion  and  Commerce.  The  last  seemed  an 
odd  combination.  It  brought  up  pictures  of  money 
changers  in  the  temple.  I  asked  the  President  about 
it,  and  he  explained  satisfactorily  by  saying  that 
being  Minister  of  Religion  didn't  provide  enough 
ministering  for  any  active  Minister,  so  that  he 
doubled  in  commerce,  as  one  might  say. 

There  is  a  police  force  in  the  Rusin  capital,  but 
there  seems  to  be  a  strong  inclination  on  the  part 
of  some  of  the  Rusins,  police  officers  included,  to  go 
back  to  their  old  position  as  a  part  of  Hungary 
instead  of  remaining  a  part  of  the  Czechoslovak  state. 
Consequently,  a  Czech  soldier  accompanies  every 
Rusin  policeman  when  he  is  on  duty.  I  asked  the 
President  why  it  should  be  so. 

"Safety  first,"  said  he,  shrugging  his  shoulders 
enigmatically. 

He  added  that  the  Hungarian  propaganda  to 
separate  Rusinia  from  Czechoslovakia  was  very 
strong;  that  there  were  many  posters  depicting  the 
better  food  conditions  which  would  exist  under 
Hungarian  rule,  and  that  the  Czechs  didn't  trust  the 
Rusins. 

I  have  dealt  at  this  undue  length  with  Rusinia 
because  its  position  explains  one  or  two  of  the  rea- 
sons why  Americans  in  Central  Europe  develop 
flushed  faces  when  they  mention  the  Peace  Con- 
ference. The  Peace  Conference,  knowing  nothing 
about  Rusinia,  granted  autonomy  to  it  on  the 
representations  of  ex-Rusins  who  were  American 

135 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

citizens,  who  had  been  out  of  touch  with  their  former 
country  for  years,  and  whose  views  had  conse- 
quently mellowed  in  retrospect.  And  here  is  the 
situation  which  existed  early  in  February: 

The  ignorance  and  poverty  in  Rusinia  are  of  such 
nature  that  the  Rusins  are  wholly  incapable  of  gov- 
erning themselves.  Rusinia  was  formerly  a  part  of 
Hungary.  To-day  it  is  separated  from  Hungary  by 
a  boundary  line  which  is  guarded  by  barbed  wire 
and  Czech  soldiers  and  a  rigid  passport  control. 
The  Rusins  cannot  follow  their  old  custom  of  going 
down  into  the  Hungarian  plains  and  earning  their 
winter  supply  of  food  by  the  sweat  of  their  brows. 
They  are  dying  of  starvation  daily  in  the  mountains 
of  Rusinia,  and  they  are  locked  in  by  the  new  border 
with  which  the  Peace  Conference  in  its  magnificent 
and  awe-inspiring  wisdom  has  furnished  them. 
Their  pine  trees  no  longer  roll  down  the  valleys  to 
the  natural  market  in  Hungary,  and  the  Czechs 
have  no  facilities  for  rolling  them  across  the  moun- 
tain slopes  into  Slovakia. 

The  American  Relief  Administration  sends  food 
into  Rusinia  for  the  children,  but  in  some  districts 
the  adults  appropriate  it  and  use  it  to  eke  out  their 
own  miserable  rations  of  grass  and  vegetable  flour. 
The  Rusins  are  helpless  and  hopeless. 

Czechoslovakia,  then,  is  shaped  like  an  old  tennis 
shoe.  The  Czechs,  surrounded  by  Germans,  are 
in  the  heel;  the  Slovaks  are  in  the  front  part  of  the 
shoe,  and  they  have  a  patch  of  Hungarians  along 
the  sole — a  very  squeaky  and  troublesome  patch. 
In  the  extreme  toe  are  the  Rusins.  Between  the 
Bohemians  and  the  Slovaks  are  the  Moravians — 

136 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

a  gentle,  kindly,  religious,  agricultural  people.  At 
the  top  of  the  shoe  laces  are  the  Teschen  and  Upper 
Silesian  coal  fields,  mostly  inhabited  by  Poles. 
Everywhere  through  Czechoslovakia  are  Czech  sol- 
diers— in  Bohemia,  in  Moravia,  in  Slovakia,  in 
Rusinia,  and  especially  round  the  coal  districts. 
And  along  the  Hungarian  border  there  are  trenches 
and  machine  guns  and  acres  of  barbed- wire  entangle- 
ments and  Czech  soldiers. 

Czechoslovakia  is  a  beautiful  country,  a  rich 
country,  a  country  well  worth  fighting  for.  Its 
fertile  farm  lands  lie  in  broad  valleys  and  on  softly 
swelling  hills.  Its  villages  are  quaint  and  clean 
and  substantial.  Its  towns  and  cities  are  satisfy- 
ingly  picturesque.  In  the  windows  of  all  its  pro- 
vision stores  the  hungry  wayfarer,  who  drops  in  from 
starved  Austria  and  stripped  Poland,  sees  butter 
in  tubs  and  countless  eggs  and  fat  Rouquefort  and 
cream  and  Cheddar  cheeses;  he  sees  slabs  of  bacon 
and  frosted  cakes  and  sweet  chocolate;  and  his  eyes 
glisten  at  the  wealth  of  the  country.  Factory 
chimneys  are  smoking  bravely— a  noteworthy  sight 
to  persons  fresh  from  Austria,  where  every  stack  is 
cold — and  there  are  plenty  of  them. 

Of  the  industries  which  were  claimed  before  the 
war  by  the  entire  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy, 
Czechoslovakia  now  has  95  per  cent  of  the  sugar 
industry,  95  per  cent  of  the  wool-textile  industry, 
82  per  cent  of  the  cotton-textile  industry,  78  per 
cent  of  the  machinery  manufactures,  65  per  cent  of 
the  iron  foundries,  50  per  cent  of  the  distilleries,  all 
of  the  china  industry,  98  per  cent  of  the  glass  in- 
dustry, and  85  per  cent  of  the  shoe  factories.     She 

137 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

has  the  coal  fields  which  used  to  supply  the  entire 
Austro-Hungarian  Empire  with  its  coal.  Czecho- 
slovakia was  the  top  layer  of  the  old  Austria- 
Hungary.  It  is  as  though  Austria-Hungary  had 
been  a  receptacle  full  of  rich  milk.  All  the  cream 
formed  at  the  top,  and  this  cream  was  skimmed  off 
and  given  to  Czechoslovakia,  leaving  a  very  watery 
fluid  for  the  other  people  interested. 

Czechoslovakia  seems  to  have  everything  she 
needs,  with  the  single  exception  of  raw  materials. 
She  is  far  better  off  than  most  of  her  neighbors. 
In  fact,  one  might  go  so  far  as  to  say  that  there  is 
nothing  at  all  the  matter  with  Czechoslovakia  except 
the  bad  rate  of  exchange,  a  small  coal  shortage,  a  lack 
of  discipline  among  government  employees  and 
soldiers,  a  lack  of  trained  officials,  too  many  Ger- 
mans, too  many  Hungarians,  too  many  Rusins,  low 
wages,  high  prices,  too  much  socialism,  a  shortage  of 
railway  cars,  too  much  Peace  Conference,  too  many 
neighbors  who  don't  care  passionately  for  the 
country,  too  much  suspicion,  too  much  hatred,  too 
many  soldiers,  too  much  boundary,  and  too  much 
politics.  Outside  of  these  few  things,  which  the 
passage  of  years  will  do  much  to  remedy,  Czecho- 
slovakia is  all  right. 

Prague  was  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  of  Bohemia 
and  is  now  the  capital  of  the  brand-new  Czecho- 
slovak state.  There  is  a  poem  which  begins  with 
lines  to  the  general  effect  that,  "The  man  whom  I 
pity  knows  naught  of  the  city — the  wonderful  city 
of  Prague."  There  is  some  reason  for  this  exuber- 
ant statement,  for  Prague  is  so  well  stocked  with 
mediaeval  towers  and  palaces  and  sky  lines  that 

138 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

nine  tenths  of  the  city  looks  Uke  well-constructed 
stage  scenery  instead  of  a  regular  town.  In  every 
block  there  is  something  that  was  built  back  in 
thirteen  hundred  and  something,  or  fourteen  hundred 
and  something,  or  fifteen  hundred  and  something; 
and  wherever  one  wanders  there  are  tablets  or 
statues  to  commemorate  somebody's  bravery  against 
the  Turkish  army  more  than  four  hundred  years  ago, 
or  somebody's  else  historic  defense  of  Prague  against 
the  Swedes,  or  What's-his-name's  bold  feat  of  throw- 
ing a  couple  of  disliked  councilors  out  of  a  second- 
story  window,  or  the  discovery  of  fifty  or  sixty  new 
stars  by  Tycho  Brahe  round  1599,  or  a  few  of  the 
gallant  deeds  of  the  famous  king,  Ottocar  II,  who 
died  back  in  1278  after  living  up  to  his  name  by 
traveling  far  and  fast  and  breaking  down  with  a  loud 
report  at  the  end. 

Lovers  of  the  antique  frequently  fall  into  swoon 
after  swoon  because  of  the  beautifully  carved  door- 
ways and  columns  and  wrought-iron  work  which 
ornament  the  humblest  dwellings  of  Prague;  while 
artists  of  great  poise  and  experience  often  burst 
into  tears  at  their  first  sight  of  the  spire  and  walls 
and  towers  and  battlements  of  the  royal  palace  and 
the  cathedral  rising  in  a  glorious  jumble  from  the 
heights  above  the  river  Moldau. 

The  stagy  effect  of  the  mediaeval  Prague  buildings 
is  heightened  on  Sundays  and  holidays  by  the  na- 
tional costumes  which  the  women  wear.  They  are 
exactly  the  type  of  costume  which  the  glorified 
dairymaids  wear  in  such  popular  successes  as  "The 
Duchess  of  Discobolus"  or  "The  Prince  of  Prunella." 
The  skirts  are  brilliantly  red  or  blue  and  come  only 
10  139 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

to  the  knee,  and  the  waists  are  gracefully  puffed  and 
incrusted  with  beautiful  embroidery,  and  there  is  a 
frothy  white  or  red  headdress,  a  purely  decorative 
embroidered  apron,  and  a  brilliantly  colored  shawl 
which  is  caught  loosely  over  the  arms  according  to 
the  ideas  of  the  best-known  chorus  directors. 

Early  in  February  I  stood  in  the  Old  Town  Square 
of  Prague,  sometimes  known  as  John  Huss  Square, 
to  watch  the  Czech  legionaries  return  from  Siberia. 
Under  all  conditions  the  Old  Town  Square  looks  like 
the  work  of  an  imaginative  artist.  There  is  the 
mediaeval  church  of  the  Hussites  at  one  end,  with 
two  high  Gothic  towers;  and  midway  up  the  high- 
pitched  roof  of  each  tower  are  four  diminutive 
towerlets  stuck  against  the  slope  in  such  a  manner 
that  they  look  as  though  they  were  going  to  fall 
off  in  about  six  seconds.  There  is  the  Kinsky  Pal- 
ace, and  a  Gothic  town  hall,  and  rows  of  porticoes, 
and  queer  old-fashioned  buildings  with  carvings  and 
painted  figures  and  balconies  and  columns  on  their 
fronts. 

With  all  this  as  a  background,  the  square  began 
to  fill  with  soldiers.  Czechs  in  American  uniforms 
on  which  the  United  States  army  buttons  still  re- 
mained, debouched  from  one  street ;  Czechs  in  French 
birettas  and  American  uniforms  debouched  from 
another  street;  from  a  third  came  a  column  of  two 
hundred  and  fifty  Czecho-Americans  in  olive-drab 
uniforms,  headed  by  two  big  American  flags  and 
singing  a  Czech  marching  song  as  they  came.  They 
lined  up  round  the  square.  From  far  off  there  came 
the  bang  and  the  crash  of  a  Czech  band.  All  the 
bells  of  Prague  went  to  tolling,  the  white  and  red  of 

140 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

Czechoslovakia  fluttered  at  all  the  windows;  and 
into  the  square  marched  the  Siberian  Rifles,  re- 
splendent in  twany-brown  uniforms  purchased  in 
Japan — the  first  of  the  Czech  units  to  return  from 
Siberia. 

Incidentally  these  Czech  fighters  are  the  best 
advertisement  that  Czechoslovakia  has  ever  had. 
They  are  the  cream  of  the  Czech  fighting  forces — 
finely  drilled,  husky,  hard-fighting,  upstanding 
troops.  None  of  the  other  Czech  military  units 
compares  with  them.  For  five  years  their  homes 
had  been  only  a  name  to  them.  They  had  en- 
dured the  unendurable  and  surmounted  the  in- 
surmountable. 

So  the  bands  blared,  the  people  cheered,  along- 
side the  Siberians  ran  hundreds  of  Czech  women  and 
girls  in  their  national  costumes — short  skirts,  em- 
broidered aprons,  glistening  headdresses,  foamy 
waists  brilliant  with  embroidery,  beautiful  shawls. 
One  expected  the  women  to  burst  into  some  such 
song  as  "We're  the  Dainty  Dairymaids"  or  "The 
King  Is  Returning  To-day,  Hurrah!" 

The  women  in  their  opera  costumes  crowded  round 
the  statue  of  John  Huss  in  the  center  of  the  square, 
the  Siberian  Rifles  lined  up  round  three  sides  of  it, 
the  Czechoslovak  Foreign  Minister  and  a  French 
general  and  several  officers  advanced  and  kissed 
the  regimental  flag  decorated  with  the  Russian 
Cross  of  St.  George — ^regular  stage  stuff,  aside  from 
the  lighting  effects. 

As  a  result  of  the  war  and  the  splitting  up  of  Central 
Europe  into  small  nations,  the  national  spirit  of  the 
different  peoples  has  been  greatly  intensified.     This 

141 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

is  particularly  true  ot  the  Czechs,  who  take  the  atti- 
tude that  nothing  is  any  good  unless  it  is  Czech. 
The  Czech  idea  of  a  riotously  good  time  is  to  put 
on  the  Czech  national  costume  and  walk  up  and 
down  the  street,  giving  the  frigid  and  unmistakable 
Czech  razz  to  anybody  who  tries  to  talk  anything 
but  Czech.  There  was  a  period  during  the  early 
months  of  1919  when  a  person  who  couldn't  talk 
Czech  simply  couldn't  get  anywhere  at  all  in  Prague. 
The  Czech  national  feeling  was  so  strong  that 
Czechs  who  spoke  perfect  German  or  French  refused 
to  speak  anything  but  Czech.  In  fact,  people  who 
spoke  German  were  frequently  mobbed.  This  is 
quite  understandable,  of  course,  for  the  Germans 
and  the  Czechs  have  been  at  one  another's  throats 
for  hundreds  of  years.  For  more  than  six  hundred 
years  the  Germans  and  the  Austrians  have  been 
trying  to  Germanize  the  Czechs.  The  attempt  al- 
most succeeded  round  the  year  1380,  but  John  Huss 
stepped  forward  and  reminded  the  Czechs  who  they 
were,  whereupon  they  became  violently  chauvinis- 
tic, so  to  speak;  chauved  viciously  in  all  directions 
and  brought  forth  the  Hussite  wars,  as  a  result  of 
which  the  Czech  language  and  literature  obtained 
the  ascendancy  over  the  German  products  for  a 
time.  The  Hapsburgs  made  another  determined 
stab  at  Germanizing  the  Czechs  all  through  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  as  a  result  the  bitterness  of 
the  feuds  between  the  Czechs  and  the  German- 
Bohemians  since  1861  would  make  the  bitterest 
Kentucky  feud  look  like  a  strawberry  festival. 

So  the  Czechs  can  scarcely  be  blamed  for  wanting 
to  Czechize  everything.     Having  been  Germanized 

142 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

by  the  Germans  and  Austrians,  they  now  propose  to 
Czechize  the  Germans  and  Austrians  in  turn. 

"Hand  it  back!"  That's  the  slogan  which  might 
to  good  advantage  be  inscribed  on  most  Central 
European  coats  of  arms. 

All  of  the  cities  and  towns  in  Czechoslovakia 
which  used  to  have  German  or  Hungarian  names 
have  now  been  given  Czech  names.  This  causes 
embarrassing  happenings.  The  capital  of  Slovakia, 
for  example,  has  appeared  on  all  maps  for  the  past 
few  hundred  years  as  Presburg.  This  was  the  Ger- 
man name  for  the  town,  and  in  parentheses  after 
the  German  name  usually  appeared  its  Hungarian 
name,  which  was  Pozsony.  The  city  was  inhabited 
almost  entirely  by  Germans  and  Hungarians.  With 
the  creation  of  the  Czechoslovak  state  the  Czechs 
came  down  to  Presburg,  seized  it,  and  began  to  drive 
out  the  Hungarians.  They  also  gave  the  town  a 
Czech  name — Bratislava.  Consequently  the  capital 
of  Slovakia  now  has  three  names :  Presburg,  Pozsony, 
and  Bratislava.  The  Czechs  frequently  refuse  to 
recognize  the  city  by  any  name  other  than  Bratislava. 
If  one  wishes  to  catch  a  train  from  Prague  to  Pres- 
burg his  inquiries  concerning  the  train  are  apt  to  be 
met  by  apparent  ignorance  on  all  sides  because  of  the 
unwillingness  of  the  Czechs  to  admit  that  there  is 
any  such  place  as  Presburg  in  existence.  The  same 
thing  has  happened  to  a  less  tongue-twisting  degree 
to  the  Slovak  city  whose  German  name  is  Kaschau, 
whose  Hungarian  name  is  Kassa,  and  whose  Czech 
name  is  Kosice — which  is  pronounced  Koseetsy. 

This  sudden  accession  of  national  feeling  on  the 
part  of  the  Czechs  has  made  them  very  brusque 

143 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

and  belligerent  toward  all  their  neighbors.  They 
are  ready  at  any  moment  of  the  day  or  night  to  enjoy 
a  free-for-all  fight  with  either  the  Hungarians  or  the 
Poles,  and  all  of  their  neighbors  accuse  them  of  all 
sorts  of  contract  breaking  and  cruelty.  The  Aus- 
trians,  for  example,  say  that  the  Czechs  do  not  live 
up  to  their  agreement  to  send  a  certain  amount  of 
coal  daily  into  Austria.  The  Czechs  admit  this, 
but  say  that  when  they  made  the  agreement  they 
overestimated  the  amount  they  could  let  Austria 
have.  They  also  say  that  if  the  conditions  were 
reversed  Austria  would  let  Czechoslovakia  freeze 
rather  than  give  her  a  single  ton  of  coal.  This  state- 
ment, in  the  light  of  what  Austria  has  done  to  the 
Czechs  in  the  past,  is  not  at  all  unreasonable. 
Czechoslovakia  is  merely  handing  it  back.  One  of 
the  most  prominent  men  in  Czechoslovakia — himself 
an  enthusiastic  Czech — made  the  following  interest- 
ing statement: 

"The  Allies  don't  realize  or  appreciate  all  that  the 
Czechs  did  to  contribute  to  the  fall  of  Austria-Hun- 
gary. We  taught  our  railway  conductors  to  steal, 
our  freight  officials  to  divert  shipments,  our  postmen 
to  open  letters ;  we  taught  our  accountants  to  falsify 
accounts;  we  encouraged  all  sorts  of  cheating  and 
crookedness  and  chicanery,  so  that  the  economic 
situation  of  the  old  monarchy  might  be  undermined. 
We  taught  Czech  soldiers  to  disobey  orders  and  to 
mutiny,  so  that  the  discipline  of  the  Austro- 
Hungarian  army  might  be  undermined.  We  were 
successful.  But  to-day  we  are  paying  the  cost,  for 
the  things  which  we  taught  our  people  cannot  be 
untaught  in  a  short  time." 

144 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

This  man,  I  believe,  was  unduly  severe  toward  his 
own  people.  All  through  Central  Europe  there  is 
an  enormous  amount  of  loafing,  cheating,  stealing, 
graft,  debauchery,  and  starvation.  Throughout 
Central  Europe  at  least  90  per  cent  of  the  people  find 
it  absolutely  impossible  to  live  decently  on  their 
salaries.  They  are  demoralized  by  years  of  war. 
They  are  further  demoralized  by  the  new  and  in- 
efficient governments  that  are  trying  to  hang  on  to 
the  reins  of  those  strange  wild  horses,  International 
Politics  and  Affairs  of  State,  and  whose  arms  are 
almost  being  pulled  out  by  the  roots  in  the  attempt. 
Want  plus  demoralization  results  in  many  unpleas- 
ant things. 

Though  Czechoslovakia  seems  on  the  surface  to 
be  far  better  off  as  regards  food  than  all  her  neighbors, 
her  city  dwellers  are  really  suffering  almost  as  much 
from  lack  of  it  as  are  the  people  round  about  her, 
because  of  the  high  cost  of  everything  in  crowns. 

The  Czechoslovak  crown,  when  I  was  in  Czecho- 
slovakia in  February,  1920,  was  worth  iH  cents, 
as  compared  with  a  pre-war  value  of  20  cents. 
Before  the  war  one  got  5  crowns  for  a  dollar. 
In  February,  1920,  one  got  75.  Yet  this  queer 
condition  existed:  the  rate  of  exchange  for  Cen- 
tral Europe  is  fixed  in  the  Swiss  banking  center 
of  Zurich.  At  the  same  time  that  one  dollar  could 
be  changed  for  7  5  Czechoslovak  crowns  in  Czechoslo- 
vakia the  Zurich  rate  was  100  Czechoslovak  crowns 
for  a  dollar.  This  was  due  to  the  fact  that  the 
Czechoslovak  foreign  exchange  office  fixed  the  in- 
ternal exchange  rate  for  Czechoslovakia  and  kept 
it  unnaturally  high,  for  fear  that  the  people  would 

145 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

start  a  few  riots  If  the  value  oi  iheir  money  was 
allowed  to  slump  too  rapidly. 

If  I  had  exchanged  American  dollars  for  Czecho- 
slovak crowns  in  Switzerland,  and  then  rushed  over 
into  Czechoslovakia  with  my  crowns,  I  could  have 
bought  a  third  again  as  much  as  could  a  person  who 
exchanged  American  dollars  in  Czechoslovakia. 
Such  an  arrangement  might  be  very  nice  if  the 
Czechs  could  put  up  a  high  barrier  so  that  nobody 
from  the  outside  world  could  come  in  and  spend 
money  in  their  country.  But  they  can't  do  that, 
so  that  their  peculiar  attempts  to  regulate  their  own 
money  only  result  in  assisting  their  own  people  to 
get  it  where  the  chicken  got  the  ax. 

Since  Czechoslovakia  used  to  be  a  part  of  Austria- 
Hungary,  the  new  republic  started  with  the  old 
Austro-Hungarian  currency,  to  which  a  small 
Czechoslovak  stamp  had  been  attached.  Since  one 
could  get  330  Austrian  crowns  for  a  dollar  at  the 
same  time  that  one  was  getting  75  Czechoslovak 
crowns  for  a  dollar,  one  of  the  great  outdoor  sports 
consisted  of  forging  stamps  and  attaching  them  to 
Austrian  money,  thus  making  Czech  money  out  of  it. 
It  was  an  easy  sport  and  a  great  money  maker. 
But  it  didn't  help  the  value  of  the  Czech  crown  to 
any  noticeable  extent.  The  Czechs  are  replacing 
the  old  money  with  beautiful  new  money  made  in 
America,  and  when  it  is  all  replaced  there  will  be 
no  more  counterfeiting. 

One  of  the  largest  banks  in  Prague  had  a  display 
of  American  securities  in  its  window  to  stimulate 
confidence  in  prospective  depositors.  The  securities 
^ere  all  made  out  in  the  name  of  the  banjc,    There 

14^ 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

was  a  certificate  tor  one  share  of  United  States 
Steel  Common,  a  certificate  for  one  share  of  Penn- 
sylvania Railroad,  and  a  certificate  for  one  share  of 
Anaconda  Copper.  These  are  all  excellent  securities, 
but  classed,  I  believe,  as  a  business  man's  risk  rather 
than  a  bank  investment.  Encouraged  by  the 
American  securities,  I  sought  an  interview  with  one 
of  the  highest  officials  of  the  bank  and  urged  him 
to  explain  the  whys  and  wherefores  of  the  peculiar 
Czechoslovak  financial  situation.  Out  of  the  flux  of 
words  which  he  emitted  I  gathered  only  one  thing: 
with  the  foreign  exchange  office  fixing  the  ex- 
change rate  at  75  when  the  Zurich  rate  was  100, 
anybody  who  sold  American  dollars  in  Czecho- 
slovakia lost  money,  and  anybody  who  bought  them 
made  money  just  like  finding  it.  All  a  buyer  had 
to  do  was  to  hold  his  dollars  until  they  reached  the 
Zurich  level,  which  they  would  inevitably  do. 

Any  European  banker  who  attempts  to  explain 
foreign  exchange  nowadays  talks  like  a  phonograph 
playing  a  worn-out  record  with  a  toothpick  as  a 
needle.  But  many  European  bankers  are  making 
more  money  every  month  by  speculating  in  money 
than  they  ever  made  before  in  all  the  years  of  their 
life  put  together. 

Since  I  got  no  results  from  the  oanKcr,  I  inter- 
viewed Mr.  Benes,  the  Foreign  Minister  of  Czecho- 
slovakia, on  the  subject. 

**The  problems  of  Czechoslovakia,"  said  Mr. 
Benes,  "like  the  problems  of  many  other  govern- 
ments in  Central  Europe,  are  particularly  puzzling, 
because  the  problems  which  naturally  confront  a 
new  republic  are  accentuated  and  intensified  by  the 

m 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

awful  rate  of  exchange.  This  exchange  rate  makes, 
it  absokitely  impossible  for  European  nations  to 
buy  abroad.  Ultimately  the  United  States  will  find 
herself  in  precisely  the  situation  which  we  are  now  in. 
The  value  of  the  American  dollar  is  too  high.  When 
there  is  overproduction,  as  there  will  be  when  Amer- 
ica cannot  sell  to  Europe,  the  factories  will  have  to 
close.  Then  there  will  be  troubles  among  the  work- 
men, and  the  value  of  the  dollar  will  fall. 

"The  only  remedy  is  stabilizing  the  rate  of  ex- 
change. The  most  terrible  feature  about  the  money 
of  Central  Europe  is  the  manner  in  which  it  fluctu- 
ates. If  any  country  could  know  that  its  money 
would  be  stationary  to  any  point  it  could  get  along 
somehow.  But  the  rate  of  exchange  can  only  be 
stabilized  by  international  agreement." 

I  advanced  the  theory  that  speculation  had  more 
to  do  with  the  fluctuation  of  foreign  money  than 
anything  else. 

' '  Certainly, ' '  said  Mr.  Benes.  * '  Whenever  Czecho- 
slovakia attempts  to  improve  the  value  of  its  money 
Germany  throws  millions  of  Czechoslovak  crowns 
on  the  market  and  the  value  of  our  money  falls 
again.  It  is  not  to  the  advantage  of  Germany  to 
have  our  money  worth  more  than  the  German 
mark." 

"Then  the  nations  of  Europe  are  harpooning 
one  another,"  I  said.  "Each  one  is  grabbing  all  he 
can  while  the  grabbing  is  good?" 

"Of  course,"  said  Mr.  Benes,  with  a  pitying  smile 
at  the  childish  innocence  of  my  remark. 

One  of  the  most  puzzling  things  about  European 
affairs  to  an  American  wanderer  is  the  enormous 

148 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

amount  of  energy  devoted  by  the  nations  of  Europe 
to  proving  that  the  United  States  must  raise  the 
value  of  European  money  by  loaning  money  to 
Europe,  and  the  complete  absence  of  any  attempt 
to  stabilize  exchange  by  agreement.  Suppose  a 
gentlemanly  burglar  were  removing  the  loose  change 
from  the  pocket  of  a  helpless  wayfarer;  and  suppose 
at  the  same  time  that  the  burglar  were  shouting 
over  his  shoulder  to  a  distant  friend  of  the  way- 
farer that  the  wayfarer  was  losing  money  and  must 
be  given  more  at  once.  I  make  no  comments  and 
draw  no  conclusions,  but  if  your  supposers  are  in  good 
working  order  just  do  a  little  supposing  along  those 
general  lines. 

But  as  I  started  to  say  some  time  back,  the  high 
cost  of  everything  in  crowns  makes  living  very 
difficult  for  the  city  dwellers  of  Czechoslovakia. 
An  unskilled  laborer  in  Prague  gets  from  7,000 
to  8,500  crowns  a  year,  while  a  skilled  laborer  gets 
from  14,000  to  20,000  crowns  a  year  if  he  works  six 
days  a  week  and  is  never  out  of  a  job.  A  bank 
employee  who  has  been  with  the  same  bank  for 
thirty  years  also  earns  20,000  crowns  a  year — or  the 
equivalent  of  about  $265  in  American  money.  The 
average  wage  of  the  clerks,  the  teachers,  and  the 
small  government  official  is  about  7,500  crowns  a 
year. 

A  good  suit  of  clothes  in  Czechoslovakia  costs 
2,500  crowns,  or  one-third  of  the  yearly  income  of  a 
white-collar  man.  Poor  men  who  must  buy  new 
clothes  or  go  round  in  rags  can  get  shoddy  suits  for 
600  crowns,  or  $8  American,  but  such  a  suit  won't 
endure  three  months  of  reasonable  wear  without 

149 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

falling  to  pieces.  A  pair  of  workingman's  shoes  costs 
about  280  crowns.  The  cheapest  sort  of  shirt  costs 
70  crowns.  Almost  nobody  in  Czechoslovakia  wears 
underclothes  any  more,  because  of  their  high  cost. 
But  shirts  must  be  worn,  and  cheap  shirts  have  a 
bad  habit  of  disintegrating  after  a  few  washings. 
Consider,  then,  the  cost  of  a  shirt  in  the  eyes  of  the 
average  Czechoslovak.  The  average  wage  is  7,500 
crowns  a  year.  The  price  of  the  cheapest  shirt  is 
70  crowns.  It's  the  same  as  though  a  man  who 
earned  $1,800  a  year  in  the  United  States  had  to  pay 
$17  for  a  single  shirt. 

I  was  talking  living  costs  with  a  Czech  government 
official  who  received  a  salary  of  19,000  crowns  a  year. 
In  the  middle  of  our  talk  a  small  boy  entered  with  a 
package.  The  official  opened  it  shamefacedly.  It 
contained  one  slice  of  ham  on  a  small  slice  of  black 
bread. 

"There  you  are,"  said  he.  "That  piece  of  ham 
and  bread  cost  eight  crowns.  If  I  had  it  every  day 
for  a  year  it  would  cost  me  nearly  three  thousand 
crowns." 

I  asked  him  how  much  he  paid  for  his  meals. 

"For  breakfast,"  said  he,  "I  pay  four  crowns, 
and  get  a  piece  of  cheese,  some  tea,  and  some  bread. 
My  lunch  costs  fifteen  crowns,  and  for  that  I  get  a 
soup,  a  small  piece  of  meat,  a  vegetable,  and  a 
pudding.  My  dinner  costs  thirteen  crowns,  and  I 
have  soup,  meat  or  fish,  a  vegetable,  bread,  and  a 
glass  of  beer.  That  represents  a  yearly  expenditure 
of  eleven  thousand  six  hundred  and  eighty  crowns 
for  food  alone,  and  I  am  always  hungry.  Every  day 
I  have  to  send  out  for  little  things  to  eat." 

ISO 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

When  a  single  man  pays  ii,68o  crowns  in  the 
course  of  a  year  for  nothing  but  three  frugal  meals 
each  day,  it  can  be  seen  that  a  yearly  salary  of 
8,000,  10,000,  or  12,000  crowns  hasn't  a  heavy  pur- 
chasing power  for  an  entire  family  which  has  to 
figure  on  clothes,  heat,  light,  and  rent,  as  well  as  on 
food.  For  further  depressing  financial  details  I  refer 
the  reader  to  my  preceding  articles  on  Poland  and 
Austria.  Though  the  suffering  in  Poland  and  Aus- 
tria is  far  greater  and  more  widespread  than  in 
Czechoslovakia,  the  sudden  drop  in  the  value  of 
Central  European  money  has  created  in  all  these 
countries  a  condition  which  is  very  similar. 

Americans  find  the  living  very  inexpensive  in 
Czechoslovakia.  I  sampled  the  best  rooms  in  the 
leading  hostelries  of  Wittingau,  Prague,  and  Konig- 
gratz  in  Bohemia,  Brunn  in  Moravia,  and  Presburg 
in  Slovakia,  and  in  none  of  them  was  I  obliged  to 
pay  more  than  30  American  cents  for  my  night's 
lodging  and  breakfast  the  next  morning.  One 
person  could  have  a  sumptuous  repast  in  Prague  for 
70  or  80  cents,  while  the  wine  list  presented  some 
bargains  that  would  make  even  a  soda  fountain  hang 
its  head  in  shame.  From  the  Rhine-wine  list  one 
could  have  a  large  bottle  of  Hochheimer  or  Lieb- 
fraumilch,  for  example,  for  40  cents.  A  magnum  of 
Hungarian  champagne  set  the  reveler  back  90  cents 
and  provided  him  with  at  least  $10  worth  of  head- 
ache. To  top  off  a  dinner  one  could  have  his  choice 
of  a  small  shot  of  Benedictine,  Chartreuse,  cherry 
brandy,  or  Curasao  for  5  cents  a  glass. 

And  while  on  the  subject  of  forbidden  fruit  it 
should  be  recorded  that  Czechoslovakia  is  the  only 

151 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Central  European  country  whose  beer  tastes  at  all 
like  beer.  Even  in  Czechoslovakia  the  resemblance 
between  the  beer  which  one  gets  and  the  beer  which 
one  ought  to  get  is  none  too  startling.  Yet  the 
Pilsener  beer — Pilsen  now  being  a  Czech  city  with 
the  name  of  Pizen,  just  as  Budweis  is  a  Czech  city 
with  the  name  of  Budejowice — is  quite  recognizably 
bitter  and  beery.  But  all  other  German,  Austrian, 
Czech,  and  Hungarian  beers  are  the  most  annoying 
burlesques  on  beer  into  which  a  thirsty  man  ever 
thrust  his  nose. 

The  near  beer  which  was  so  common  in  America 
during  the  doubtful  or  almost  arid  era  was  powerful 
and  potent  compared  with  the  present-day  German 
and  Austrian  beer.  It  looks  like  beer  and  it  smells 
like  beer.  It  is  a  beautiful  golden  yellow  in  color, 
or  a  rich  brown,  and  it  is  crowned  with  a  creamy 
collar  that  makes  the  air  whistle  shrilly  through  the 
parched  throat.  It  looks,  as  I  say,  like  the  real 
thing,  but  it  tastes  like  some  sort  of  ditch  water  that 
would  be  nasty  if  it  had  enough  strength,  but  that 
hasn't  even  enough  strength  to  quench  a  thirst. 
Its  percentage  of  alcohol  must  be  considerably 
smaller  than  that  of  buttermilk,  but  I  cannot  give 
any  figures  on  this  phase  of  the  matter,  because  every- 
one was  so  disgusted  with  the  beer  that  he  was  un- 
willing to  talk  about  it. 

A  traveler  in  Bohemia  quickly  learns  that  there 
are  certain  things  which  are  essentially  Bohemian — 
or  Czechish.  There  is  a  belief  in  the  neighborhood 
of  Washington  Square,  New  York,  that  true  Bo- 
hemianism  consists  of  wearing  the  finger  nails  in 
deep  mourning,  scattering  cigarette  ashes  on  the 

152 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

floor  late  at  night,  not  paying  the  rent  on  time, 
placing  all  successful  people  on  a  verbal  griddle,  and 
talking  a  great  deal  about  art. 

This,  however,  is  not  truly  Bohemian.  True 
Bohemians  eat  enormous  quantities  of  caraway  seeds 
and  goose,  use  the  most  uncomfortable  bedclothes 
in  the  world,  and  go  to  bed  at  eight  o'clock  at  night. 
A  natural  disinclination  to  be  quiet  before  two  or 
three  o'clock  in  the  morning  would  consequently 
prevent  the  Washington  Square  Bohemians  from 
resembling  the  true  Bohemian  to  any  marked 
degree. 

The  Bohemian  has  the  same  passion  for  caraway 
seeds  that  the  southern  Italian  has  for  garlic.  When 
a  Bohemian  cook  prepares  anything  she  instinctively 
reaches  into  the  caraway-seed  box  and  heaves  a  hand- 
ful of  seeds  into  the  dish.  She  uses  caraway  seeds 
with  the  hors  d'ceuvre,  soup,  fish,  meat,  vegetables, 
desserts,  and  cakes.  One  American  in  Prague  carries 
a  pair  of  small  silver  tweezers  with  him,  and  when- 
ever he  sits  down  to  eat  a  meal  he  draws  the  tweezers 
from  his  pocket  and  starts  to  pick  the  caraway  seeds 
out  of  his  bread  with  them.  He  spends  twice  as 
much  time  in  picking  caraway  seeds  out  of  his  food 
as  he  does  in  eating,  and  the  doctor  says  that  he  will 
have  a  nervous  breakdown  if  he  can't  get  food  that 
has  no  caraway  seeds  in  it.  The  advantages  which 
accrue  from  the  use  of  caraway  seeds  in  food  are  not 
known  except  to  the  Czechs  and  the  Germans.  I 
asked  a  Czech  what  it  was  about  caraway  seeds  that 
made  them  so  popular.     He  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Why  does  an  Arctic  explorer  love  the  Arctic 
regions?"  he  countered. 

153 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

It  was  an  unanswerable  counter  which  answered 
all  things. 

The  national  dish  of  Bohemia  is  unquestionably 
goose.  Americans  in  Prague  declare  that  the  Czech 
coat  of  arms  should  be  a  goose  couchant  on  a 
kniidliche  surmounted  by  three  caraway  seeds  ram- 
pant. The  kniidliche  is  a  ball  of  half-cooked  dough 
about  as  large  as  a  baseball,  and  it  is  highly  es- 
teemed as  a  food  in  Bohemia.  If  the  Czechs  ever 
fight  the  Hungarians  they  could  use  the  kniidliche 
as  an  offensive  weapon  to  good  advantage,  for  it 
would  perform  terrible  execution  if  thrown  with 
any  accuracy  against  the  enemy.  Anybody  who  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  struck  by  a  kniidliche  would 
think  that  a  house  had  fallen  on  him.  Strangers  who 
eat  an  entire  kniidliche  for  the  first  time  have  the 
sensation  of  having  swallowed  one  of  the  Pyramids 
of  Gizeh. 

As  for  the  goose,  it  is  a  common  food  in  Bohemia 
because  everyone  raises  geese.  I  made  a  trip  by 
automobile  up  through  Bohemia,  across  Bohemia  to 
that  portion  of  the  country  known  as  the  Sudetenland, 
where  the  German  inhabitants  set  up  a  republic 
called  the  Sudetenland  Republic  after  the  armistice, 
and  down  through  Moravia;  and  in  that  trip  I  saw 
more  geese  than  I  had  dreamed  were  in  existence. 
Geese  rushed  out  from  every  house  to  voice  their  dis- 
pleasure of  automobiles  by  undulating  their  necks 
and  hissing  ferociously;  geese  gathered  in  solemn 
conclaves  in  our  path  and  honked  their  loathing  of 
us  to  high  heaven;  geese  materialized  from  nowhere 
and  flapped  out  from  under  our  fenders.  Wherever 
we  stopped  for  food  the  food  consisted  of  goose — 

IS4 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

goose  soup,  goose  liver,  goose  breast,  roast  goose, 
chopped  goose,  sliced  goose,  stewed  goose,  and  just 
plain  goose,  with  an  occasional  hors  d'asuvre  of  pdt^ 
de  joie  gras  Goose  is  a  fine  food  for  Christmas  and 
holidays,  but  goose  for  lunch  and  goose  for  dinner 
and  goose  for  supper  day  after  day  and  week  after 
week  is  a  bird  of  another  feather — a  bird,  in  fact, 
completely  covered  with  variegated  feathers.  After 
a  few  days  of  this  fare  the  mere  sight  of  a  goose  is 
sufficient  to  send  a  wave  of  nausea  through  the  most 
enthusiastic  goose  lover,  while  the  distant  honk  of  a 
goose  is  enough  to  give  him  a  nervous  chill. 

Probably  the  enormous  numbers  of  geese  that  are 
killed  annually  in  Czechoslovakia  account  for  the 
feather  bedclothes.  Every  little  house  in  the  coun- 
try, every  apartment,  and  almost  every  hotel  room 
in  Czechoslovakia  boasts  feather  bedclothes.  The 
contraption  resembles  a  flimsily  made  feather  mat- 
tress. When  retiring  for  the  night  one  throws  him- 
self on  the  bed  and  allows  the  feather  covering  to 
fall  heavily  and  clingingly  on  top  of  him.  It  is 
musty  and  adhesive  and  oppressive.  It  isn't  so 
bad  when  the  weather  is  bitterly  cold  and  one  can 
succeed  in  prying  open  one  of  the  windows  which 
Central  Europeans  so  religiously  seal  down  during  the 
winter  months,  but  when  the  weather  is  at  all  warm 
the  feather  bedclothes  are  excessively  heavy.  It  is 
a  case  of  all  or  nothing.  The  entire  wad  of  goose 
feathers  must  be  endured,  for  if  it  is  thrown  off  there 
is  nothing  left — sometimes  not  even  a  sheet. 

Some  of  the  more  advanced  hotels  have  substituted 
blankets  and  a  quilt  for  the  feather  bedclothes,  but 
even  in  such  cases  tradition  is  too  strong  for  them. 
u  155 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

The  top  of  the  quilt  has  a  row  of  buttons  down  each 
side  and  across  the  foot,  and  the  sheet  is  pulled  up 
on  to  the  top  of  the  quilt  and  carefully  buttoned  to  it, 
so  that  the  bedclothes  are  a  compact  and  slippery 
mass.  In  order  to  remove  the  quilt  on  a  warm 
evening  one  has  to  do  as  much  unbuttoning  as 
though  he  were  assisting  all  the  inmates  of  an  orphan 
asylum  out  of  their  pinafores.  And  when  the  bed- 
clothes are  buttoned  up  any  sudden  movement  on 
the  part  of  the  person  who  is  reclining  beneath 
them  is  sufficient  to  cause  the  entire  mass  to  slide 
off  the  bed  and  on  to  the  floor. 

The  head  of  the  Hoover  Child  Feeders  in  Czecho- 
slovakia is  Capt.  Arthur  C.  Ringland,  a  former 
American  army  officer,  who  used  to  be  in  the 
Forestry  Service  round  the  Grand  Canon.  With 
five  American  assistants  Captain  Ringland  has 
divided  Czechoslovakia  into  200  districts,  with 
local  feeding  committees  scattered  through  each 
district.  Thus  there  are  200  district  committees 
and  3,000  local  committees;  and  through  this  or- 
ganization the  American  food  goes  to  some  550,000 
children. 

The  Americans,  of  course,  are  not  interested  in 
Czechoslovak  politics,  except  as  the  politics  tend 
to  hinder  their  work.  They  don't  even  care  about 
talking  Czechoslovak  politics.  They  are  in  Czecho- 
slovakia to  see  that  the  children  who  are  suffering 
from  malnutrition,  in  the  opinion  of  competent 
physicians,  are  fed.  They  don't  care  what  race  a 
child  may  belong  to  or  what  its  parents'  creed  may 
be.  If  the  child  is  hungry  they  aim  to  feed  it.  The 
people  among   whom  they  work,  however,  don't 

156 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

always  feel  that  way  about  it.  In  many  towns 
which  have  Czech  majorities  the  Czechs  frequently 
try  to  fix  things  so  that  German  children  won't  be 
fed.  In  towns  with  German  majorities  the  Germans 
often  take  steps  to  deprive  the  Czech  children  of 
food. 

The  American  Relief  Administration  has  been 
forced  to  recognize  this  condition,  and  they  have 
to  be  very  careful  that  the  feeding  committees  are 
carefully  mixed.  Each  committee  must  have  an 
equal  number  of  Czechs  and  Germans  on  it,  or  of 
Slovaks  and  Hungarians,  or  of  whatever  national- 
ities the  district  may  be  comprised.  In  the  town 
of  Novi-Paka,  for  example,  a  party  representing  one 
nationality  succeeded  in  grasping  the  reins  of  power. 
Its  first  move  was  to  insist  that  only  the  children 
of  that  party  be  fed.  The  examining  doctors  were 
assailed  by  a  mob  which  demanded  that  their 
children  be  put  in  C  class — C  class  representing  the 
worst  cases  of  malnutrition  and  the  only  class  to  be 
fed — without  regard  for  their  actual  physical  state. 

All  of  this  has  been  a  great  shock  to  the  Americans 
in  Czechoslovakia,  who  had  come  to  the  new  re- 
public expecting  to  find  all  the  inhabitants  of  the 
young  Czechoslovak  state  pulling  together  in  en- 
thusiasm and  accord.  They  had  forgotten,  of  course, 
the  messy  condition  which  existed  in  the  United 
States  after  the  Revolutionary  War,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  odorous  state  of  affairs  after  the  Civil  War. 
They  had  forgotten  that  Czechoslovakia  was  being 
guided  by  politicians  and  diplomats  who  had  donned 
the  official  silk  hat  of  statesmanship  for  the  first 
time  on  Oct9ber  28,  191 8,  admired  themselves  in  the 

H7 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

mirror  for  a  few  moments,  and  then  strolled  up  to  the 
palace  and  wondered  how  to  start  running  a  republic. 

The  internal  squabbles  which  distress  the  Amer- 
icans to  such  a  degree  and  make  them  so  pessimistic 
are  old,  old  stories.  So,  too,  are  the  attitudes  which 
the  Czechs  adopt  toward  their  friends  and  enemies. 
Historians  and  observers  who  have  been  notoriously 
pro-Czech  have  for  many  years  written  the  Czechs 
down  as  being  over-aggressive,  as  well  as  painfully 
shortsighted  and  narrow  in  their  political  outlook. 
One  of  their  greatest  admirers  has  declared  that, 
though  the  progress  of  the  Czechs  in  fields  other  than 
political  has  been  altogether  admirable,  they  have 
always  lacked  political  leaders  of  eminence,  so  that 
they  have  allowed  themselves  to  squander  time  and 
energy  over  barren  linguistic  brawls,  to  overdo  the 
policy  of  the  mere  wrecker  and  obstructionist,  and  so 
to  destroy  their  prestige  and  reputation  for  political 
foresight  both  at  home  and  abroad. 

The  squabbles  between  the  Czechs  and  the  Ger- 
mans are  so  old  that,  in  the  low  patois  of  the  late 
American  army,  they  have  whiskers  on  them — long, 
flowing  white  whiskers.  Both  the  Germans  and 
the  Czechs  claim,  of  course,  that  they  got  to  the 
country  first.  But  when  two  different  nationalities 
in  Europe  get  to  arguing  over  a  bit  of  real  estate, 
the  first  move  of  each  people  is  to  prove  that  they  got 
there  first.  The  Rumanians  and  the  Hungarians 
can  prove  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  that  they 
got  to  Transylvania  ahead  of  the  others.  The 
Hungarians  and  the  Slovaks  lie  rings  round  one 
another  on  a  similar  question.  The  Czechs  and  the 
Germans  go  back  thousands  of  years  to  prove  their 

158 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

claims  to  Bohemia,  If  put  to  it,  the  Germans  could 
probably  prove  conclusively — conclusively  to  them- 
selves, that  is — that  they  were  the  original  in- 
habitants of  Canada,  Mexico,  and  the  North  Pole, 
and  that  the  effete  government  of  the  Incas  of  Peru 
resulted  from  their  rejection  of  German  culture. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  outsiders  don't  much  care  who 
got  there  first.  If  the  Dutch  tried  to  take  New 
York  away  from  the  United  States  on  the  ground 
that  the  original  settlers  of  New  York  were  Dutch, 
they  would  probably  receive  one  of  the  loudest  and 
most  resonant  guffaws  that  ever  emerged  from 
human  lips.  But  it  is  a  matter  of  history  that  there 
was  a  Czech  state  in  Bohemia  twelve  hundred  years 
ago,  or  upward  of  eight  hundred  years  before  the 
late  Christopher  Columbus  borrowed  money  on  the 
quaint  theory  that  the  earth  was  round  enough  to 
permit  him  to  discover  America.  At  that  time — 
twelve  hundred  years  ago — the  Czechs  were  indulging 
in  passionate  and  ferocious  wars  with  the  neighbor- 
ing German  tribes.  Sometimes  the  Germans  would 
come  out  on  top  and  the  Czech  state  would  dry  up 
to  a  small  peanut.  At  other  times  the  Czechs  would 
get  the  Germans  on  the  run,  and  at  such  times  the 
Czech  state  would  swell  out  like  a  wet  sponge. 
Always — century  after  century  and  sometimes  gen- 
eration after  generation — the  Czech-German  racial 
struggle  came  off  with  absolute  certainty,  albeit  with- 
out the  same  regularity  as  Christmas  or  the  Allen- 
town  Fair. 

It  is  this  same  old  racial  struggle  which  is  going 
on  to-day.  The  Germans  used  to  hand  it  to  the 
Czechs;   and  now  the  Czechs  are  handing  it  back 

159 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

to  the  Germans.  They  aren't  getting  on  a  bit 
better  than  they  have  ever  got  on;  and  it  is  highly 
probable  that  they  aren't  getting  on  any  worse, 
either,  in  spite  of  the  assurances  of  the  Germans 
that  they  simply  can't  endure  the  Czechs  another 
minute. 

The  Germans — a  ring  of  three  million  round  the 
six  million  Czechs — are  roaring  ferociously.  They 
are  complaining  that  they  have  no  representation 
in  the  laws  under  which  they  must  live ;  that  their 
schools  are  being  taken  away  from  them;  that  they 
are  being  forced  to  speak  the  barbarous  Czech  lan- 
guage; that  they  are  being  discriminated  against 
in  business;  and  that  they  cannot  and  will  not 
stand  it. 

Over  against  their  hair-raising  howls  is  the  fact 
that  the  Bohemian,  or  Czech  part  of  Czechoslovakia, 
is  a  geographical  unity.  It  is  a  plateau  fringed  with 
mountains — a  natural  fortress.  It  is  Czechland,  and 
anybody  who  doesn't  like  it  is  at  liberty,  as  the 
saying  goes,  to  lump  it.  If  the  Germans  don't  like 
it  they  can  lump  it.  If  a  large  crowd  of  Americans 
should  emigrate  to  Bohemia,  and  should  start  to 
make  a  protracted  and  poignant  yelp  because  they 
didn't  like  something,  they  also  could  lump  it. 
Czechs  in  the  United  States  who  don't  like  American 
customs  and  American  laws  and  American  ideas — 
and  American  schools — are  also  at  liberty  to  lump 
it  or  get  out. 

With  the  Czechs  it  is  a  case  of  Bohemia  for  the 
Czechs.  It  is  also  apparently  a  case  of  Slovakia, 
Rusinia,  and  part  of  Hungary  for  the  Czechs  as  well. 
But  just  at  present  we  are  talking  about  Bohemia, 

i6o 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

which  is  a  Czechland  and  a  geographical  unity — a 
natural  nation.  "Bohemia  for  the  Czechs,"  then — 
that  is  their  cry. 

There  is  a  fly  in  the  consomme,  however.  Ger- 
many lies  to  the  north  of  Bohemia  and  Austria 
to  the  south.  If  Austria  joins  with  Germany,  as  she 
might,  and  if  between  them  they  had  a  keen  desire 
to  crush  Bohemia  out  of  business,  the  three  million 
disgruntled  Germans  in  Bohemia  would  not  be  much 
of  a  hindrance. 

The  Czechs  have  been  great  promisers  during  the 
past  year  or  so,  but  their  neighbors  and  a  good  many 
of  their  own  people  claim  that  they  don't  live  up  to 
their  promises.  The  Germans  have  been  promised 
equal  rights  and  schools  and  all  sorts  of  things,  but 
in  February,  1920,  every  German  with  whom  I 
talked  in  Czechoslovakia  declared  openly,  loudly, 
and  contemptuously  that  none  of  the  promises  had 
been  kept. 

I  interviewed  Mr.  Tusar,  the  Czechoslovak  Prime 
Minister,  on  this  subject  among  others.  Mr.  Tusar 
admitted  the  great  differences  between  the  Czechs 
and  the  Germans,  but  spoke  in  words  which  were  well 
coated  with  diplomatic  salve  and  Prime-Ministerial 
optimism.  He  declared  that  the  Czechs  and  the 
Germans  are  still  overshadowed  by  the  past,  and 
that  the  leaders,  grown  up  in  the  traditions  of  petty 
national  strife,  find  it  difficult  to  renounce  their  old 
attitude — meaning  their  attitude  of  excessive  hate 
and  loathing.  He  said  that  the  Germans  weren't 
to  be  punished  for  their  past  sins,  however,  and  that 
they  were  to  be  granted  more  liberty  of  policy, 
nationality,  and  culture  than  the  Peace  Treaty  ever 

161 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

thought  of  granting  them.  He  didn't  say  when 
they  were  to  be  granted  all  this.  He  disposed  of  the 
school  question  by  saying  that  privileges  of  an  edu- 
cational nature  for  the  Germans  had  to  be  restricted 
for  budget  reasons,  and  sorrowfully  observed  that 
the  Germans  unjustly  misunderstood  this. 

"Finally,"  said  Mr.  Tusar,  "through  mutual 
economic  interests,  in  time,  life  for  the  two  national- 
ities living  side  by  side  will  grow  more  pleasant  and 
a  lasting  agreement  result  some  day." 

It  is  more  to  the  advantage  of  the  Germans  in 
Czechoslovakia  to  be  citizens  of  Czechoslovakia  than 
to  be  citizens  of  Germany  or  Austria.  There  are  many 
Czechoslovaks  who  fought  loyally  in  the  Austrian 
army  to  the  very  end  of  the  war,  but  who  are  as  free 
from  dislike  or  restrictions,  so  far  as  the  outside  world 
is  concerned,  as  though  they  had  fought  against 
Germany  all  their  lives.  There  is  no  moral  boycott 
against  any  part  of  Czechoslovakia.  This  is  a  valu- 
able asset  in  Central  Europe,  and  the  Germans  in 
Czechoslovakia  appreciate  it.  They  are  willing  to 
be  placated,  even  though  most  of  them  say  that  they 
aren't.  The  desire  of  the  Czechs  to  have  Bohemia 
entirely  Czechized  can  readily  be  understood, 
especially  by  thorough  Americans.  But  even  the 
most  thorough  Americans  in  Czechoslovakia  pre- 
dict trouble  for  the  Czechs  if  they  don't  soon  start 
handling  the  Germans  with  softer  gloves  than  they 
have  hitherto  used. 

The  situation  in  the  Slovakian  toe  of  the  Czecho- 
slovak sneaker  is  one  that  causes  a  newcomer  to  hold 
his  head  in  his  hands  and  call  weakly  for  a  head- 
ache powder.    In  the  cant  phrase  of  the  political 

1^9 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

student,  it  is  a  sweet  mess. '  It  is  as  complicated 
as  a  perpetual-motion  machine,  and  the  League  of 
Nations  could  unravel  it  about  as  easily  as  a  hippo- 
potamus could  crawl  through  a  stick  of  macaroni. 

The  Slovaks  aren't  a  very  well-known  people. 
The  American  idea  of  them  is  that  they  are  content 
to  live  fifteen  or  twenty  in  a  room  and  in  the  most 
squalid  surroundings.  I  have  been  into  a  good 
many  Slovak  villages,  and  I  have  found  the  Slovak 
peasants  among  the  most  attractive  and  lovable 
peasant  people  of  the  many  I  have  seen.  Their 
cottages  are  simple  and  neat  and  comfortable. 
Every  Slovak  peasant  woman  has  embroideries 
which  she  designs  and  works  herself — waists  and 
skirts  and  aprons  and  shawls  and  headdresses  and 
sheets;  and  for  beauty  of  design  and  fineness  of  exe- 
cution they  are  unrivaled.  Every  Slovak  peasant 
woman  has  these  things.  Almost  all  the  Slovak 
women  paint  the  plaster  walls  of  their  kitchens  and 
living  rooms  with  free-hand  designs  so  symmetrical 
and  daring  and  colorful  that  they  nearly  knock  out 
the  eye  of  the  unprepared  beholder.  In  other  words, 
they  are  almost  without  exception  people  of  excel- 
lent taste  and  with  a  love  for  the  beautiful. 

The  great  drawback  about  the  Slovaks  is  their 
illiteracy.  For  nearly  one  thousand  years  Slovakia 
has  been  a  part  of  Hungary,  and  during  this  time  the 
Magyars — as  the  true  Hungarians  are  always  known 
in  Central  Europe — oppressed  all  things  Slovakian. 
That  is  to  say,  the  Magyars  prevented  the  Slovaks 
from  developing  as  Slovaks.  The  only  schools 
which  taught  the  Slovak  languages  were  the  primary 
schools,    If  a  Slovak  wanted  higher  education  he  had 

163 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

to  go  to  a  Magyar  high  school  and  college.  Slovaks 
who  learned  the  Magyar  language  were  favored 
by  the  Magyars  and  given  public  offices. 

Thus  practically  all  of  the  educated  Slovaks  are 
Magyarized.  Some  people  say  very  harsh  things 
about  the  Magyars  for  refusing  to  allow  the  Slovaks 
to  have  their  own  high  schools  and  colleges.  Yet  in 
America  we  don't  allow  different  nationalities  to 
have  their  own  schools.  We  Americanize  everyone 
so  far  as  we  are  able,  so  that  we  may  have  tuiity  and 
accord. 

At  any  rate,  the  Slovaks  who  didn't  go  to  Magyar 
schools  are  illiterate.  The  Slovaks  who  went  to 
Magyar  schools  are  Magyarized  and  frequently 
speak  Magyar  fluently,  but  don't  speak  Slovak. 
These  Magyarized  Slovaks  have  always  made  opposi- 
tion politics  to  the  Magyars,  but  the  only  thing  which 
they  have  sought  in  the  past  has  been  autonomy 
under  Hungary — never  independence  or  autonomy 
under  Bohemia. 

Once  a  person  makes  opposition  politics  over  a 
long  period  of  time  it  gets  in  his  blood.  He  is  "agin" 
all  government.  He  specializes  in  destruction  and 
never  iri  construction.  Many  of  the  parties  now  in 
power  in  Central  Europe  are  made  up  of  men  who 
have  alws,3's  made  opposition  politics  and  who  there- 
fore cannot  originate  constructive  policies.  Being 
themselves  the  government,  with  only  themselves 
to  oppose,  they  promptly  proceed  to  oppose  them- 
selves. In  this  they  are  like  those  constitutional 
fighters,  the  Montenegrins,  who,  lacking  a  common 
enemy  to  fight,  choose  up  sides  and  fight  one  another. 
The  Slovaks  are  makers  of  opposition  politics.    They 

164 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

Were  against  the  Magyars.  Now  they  are  against 
the  Czechs — not  violently,  but  just  against  them. 
They  haven't  yet  reached  the  point  where  they 
want  to  break  away  from  the  Czechs.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  Slovaks  don't  know  what  they  want,  be- 
cause of  their  newness  and  rawness.  There  are  four 
political  parties  in  Slovakia,  and  not  one  of  them 
has  a  definite  program. 

As  for  the  Czechs,  their  policy  is  to  make  the 
Czechs  and  the  Slovaks  into  one  people,  and  this  is 
particularly  galling  to  the  Slovaks.  The  Czechs, 
as  I  said  earlier  in  this  article,  are  hard.  ReHgion 
cuts  no  great  figure  in  their  lives.  Czech  soldiers 
have  knocked  down  many  of  the  Slovak  shrines 
which  dot  the  countryside,  and  while  I  was  in 
Presburg  Czech  soldiers  entered  the  cathedral  there 
and  hacked  off  parts  of  a  Magyar  shrine  on  the 
cathedral  wall.  Then,  too,  the  Czechs  are  Socialists. 
Bohemia  is  largely  Social- Democratic,  and  the  Social 
Democracy  which  obtains  in  Germany,  Austria, 
Czechoslovakia,  and  parts  of  Italy  is  perilously  close 
to  Bolshevism.  Some  people  refer  to  Social  Democ- 
racy as  creeping  Bolshevism.  Its  foundation,  despite 
the  denials  of  the  Social  Democrats  themselves,  is 
class  warfare  and  the  socialization  of  everything. 
Put  that  in  your  pipe  and  smoke  it  and  you'll  find 
that  the  smoke  comes  out  a  bright,  Bolshevistic  red. 

All  of  these  things  offend  the  Slovaks.  The 
Slovaks  are  mild,  conservative,  and  very  religious. 
Many  of  them  own  their  land,  and  consequently 
want  nothing  of  Socialism.  There  are  not  enough 
educated  Slovaks  to  fill  lo  per  cent  of  the  govern- 
ment and  school  positions  in  Slovakia.     The  va- 

165 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

cancies  are  filled  with  Czechs  who  have  been  sent" 
down  from  Prague.  In  many  cases  these  imported 
officials  are  incompetent.  Lots  of  them  resemble 
the  carpetbaggers  who  went  from  the  North  into 
the  South  after  our  Civil  War.  Many  of  these  new 
officeholders  are  aggressive  and  arrogant.  They 
don't  think  much  of  the  Slovaks  and  they  don't 
hesitate  to  show  it.  This  helps  to  give  the  Slovaks 
a  long,  lingering  pain. 

The  Czechs  refuse  to  listen  to  any  talk  of  au- 
tonomy for  Slovaks,  because  Slovakia  has  such  a 
scrambled  population  that  an  elected  Slovak  parlia- 
ment might  suddenly  vote  to  join  Hungary.  One 
of  the  leading  Slovaks  explained  it  this  way:  "Fifty- 
four  per  cent  of  Slovakia's  population  is  Slovak, 
thirty-one  per  cent  is  Magyar,  eight  per  cent  is  Ger- 
man, and  seven  per  cent  is  Rusin.  In  the  Slovak 
parliament  there  would  be  about  one  hundred  and 
sixty  Slovak  members  and  about  one  hundred  and 
forty  others;  and  not  all  the  Slovaks  would  be 
loyal.  Some  are  Magyars  at  heart.  So  we  couldn't 
be  sure  of  a  majority  in  parliament,  and  conse- 
quently Slovakia  cannot  be  autonomous." 

Competent  observers  seem  to  think  that  the  situa- 
tion between  the  Slovaks  and  the  Czechs  can  be 
calmed  if  the  Czechs  adopt  a  less  aggressive,  more 
tolerant,  less  suspicious  attitude.  Claims  are  made 
in  Slovakia  that  the  country  is  infested  with  Czech 
spies.  The  competent  observers  also  hold  the 
opinion  that  if  the  Czechs  aren't  able  to  place  any 
confidence  in  the  Slovaks  they'd  better  get  rid  of  the 
country. 

The  Slovak-Czech  situation,  muddled  and  dan- 
i66 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

gerous  as  it  is,  fades  into  insignificance  beside  the 
Czech-Magyar  situation  in  Slovakia. 

The  Czech-Magyar  hatred  is  an  excellent  sample  of 
the  magnificent,  unparalleled,  loo-per-cent  hatreds 
which  the  Peace  Treaty  has  loosed  in  Central  Europe 
and  which  have  turned  Central  Europe  into  a  greater 
collection  of  Balkan  states. 

The  states  which  have  been  formed  out  of  the 
old  Austro-Hungarian  monarchy  are  maintaining 
nearly  twice  as  many  soldiers  as  the  old  monarchy 
needed  to  keep  the  peace  before  the  war.  Every 
border  is  guarded  and  triple  guarded.  Every  piece 
of  luggage  is  investigated  minutely  at  every  border. 

No  longer  can  a  traveler  in  Central  Europe  say, 
"On  such  and  such  a  day  I  shall  travel  to  such  and 
such  a  place."  The  United  Hates  of  Central  Europe 
will  not  permit  any  such  freedom  of  movement. 

Nowadays  a  traveler  goes  when  he  can  get  his 
vis^s  and  his  police  permits,  and  not  before.  On 
arriving  in  a  city  he  must  inform  the  police.  On 
leaving  the  city  he  must  inform  the  police.  When 
leaving  a  country  he  must  have  the  permission  of  the 
country  which  he  is  leaving,  the  country  to  which 
he  is  going,  and  the  countries  through  which  he  must 
travel.  It  sometimes  takes  an  entire  day  to  get  a 
single  vis^.  Americans,  who  are  the  most  highly 
favored  of  all  travelers,  are  sometimes  forced  to  pre- 
sent letters  stating  that  they  are  not  involved  in 
politics  before  they  are  permitted  to  travel  into  a 
country  on  an  American  passport.  Special  vis^s 
are  frequently  required  in  order  to  go  to  different 
parts  of  a  single  country.  Most  good  trains  are 
under  military   control,   and  miUtary  permits  are 

167 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

required  In  order  to  ride  on  them.  All  reservations 
on  trains  possessing  reservable  seats  or  compart- 
ments are  made  from  one  to  three  weeks  in  advance. 

Journeys  which  used  to  take  three  or  four  hours 
before  the  war  frequently  take  from  fifteen  to  twenty 
hours  to-day  because  of  passport  restrictions  and 
border  difficulties.  To  go  from  Prague  in  the  west 
of  Czechoslovakia  to  Uzhorod  in  the  east  used  to 
take  ten  or  twelve  hours.  Now  it  takes  two  days. 
From  Vienna  to  Budapest  used  to  be  a  five-hour 
train  ride.  To-day  it  takes  fourteen  hours.  Train 
travel  in  Central  Europe  is  exactly  the  same  as  train 
travel  between  Boston  and  New  York  would  be  if 
one  needed  a  vise  to  go  from  Massachusetts  into 
Rhode  Island,  from  Rhode  Island  into  Connecticut, 
and  from  Connecticut  into  New  York,  and  if  one 
had  to  endure  a  searching  customs  examination  on 
leaving  Massachusetts,  entering  Rhode  Island,  enter- 
ing Connecticut,  and  entering  New  York. 

Exaggerated  ?  The  case  is  understated !  Coming 
from  Poland  into  Austria  I  saw  five  people  thrown 
off  the  Entente  express — people  of  some  conse- 
quence, too — because  they  had  failed  to  get  police 
permission  to  leave  Poland.  In  spite  of  having 
paid  their  fares,  they  had  to  go  all  the  way  back 
to  Warsaw  and  go  through  many  hardships  and 
inconveniences  because  of  their  oversight.  Coming 
from  Hungary  into  Austria  I  saw  two  hundred 
travelers  jammed  into  one  small  room  for  five  hours 
until  each  one  of  the  two  hundred  had  satisfied  the 
customs  requirements. 

I  saw  an  American  citizen  in  the  American  Lega- 
tion in  Prague  almost  weeping  with  rage  because  the 

168 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

Czechs  at  the  border,  in  examining  him  for  money 
and  suspicious  papers,  had  ripped  his  coat  open  with 
such  violence  that  every  button  on  it  had  been  half 
torn  off.  I  have  seen  the  Italian  consul  in  Vienna 
refuse  to  vis^  an  American  passport  to  Italy  until 
the  owner  of  the  passport  produced  a  letter  from  the 
American  Mission  in  Vienna  stating  that  he  was  not 
concerned  in  politics;  and  at  the  same  time  as  a 
matter  of  principle,  the  American  Mission  in  Vienna 
refused  to  accede  to  this  demand  on  the  part  of  the 
Italian  consul  and  would  not  supply  any  American 
citizen  whatever  with  any  such  letter.  In  other 
words,  American  citizens  could  not  proceed  from 
Vienna  to  Italy,  in  spite  of  having  good  American 
passports. 

No;  the  difficulties  of  travel  in  Central  Europe 
are  hard  to  exaggerate.  My  references  to  them 
have  barely  scratched  the  surface.  Some  day  I  will 
really  tell  you  about  it,  and  as  you  read  the  white 
hairs  will  come  crowding  in  among  your  raven  locks. 
Every  state  in  Central  Europe  hates  every  other 
state  with  enough  bitterness  to  sour  eau  de  Cologne, 
and  a  few  of  them,  not  content  with  hating  everyone 
else,  hate  themselves. 

The  hot  box  of  the  Czech-Hungarian  hate  is  the 
city  of  Presburg,  or  Pozshony,  or  Bratislava.  I  call 
it  Presburg  because  under  any  other  name  it  can't 
be  found  on  an  American,  English,  French,  or  Ger- 
man map. 

Presburg  is  the  capital  of  Slovakia.  It  used  to  be 
the  old  capital  of  the  Magyars.  For  hundreds  of 
years  the  Magyar  kings  were  crowned  there.  It  was 
inhabited  chiefly  by  Germans  and  Magyars,  with  a 

169 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

smattering  of  educated  or  Magyarized  Slovaks. 
The  tombstones  in  the  cemeteries  of  Presburg  bear 
nothing  but  Magyar  and  German  names. 

To-day  it  is  a  Czech  city.  Fifteen  thousand 
Magyars  have  been  prodded  out  of  their  homes  and 
jobs  to  make  room  for  imported  Czech  officials, 
Czech  school  teachers,  and  Czech  merchants,  and 
have  been  shipped  down  into  Hungary.  The  Mag- 
yar professors  have  been  thrown  out  of  the  ancient 
Magyar  university  at  Presburg.  The  name  of  the 
city  has  been  changed  to  a  Czech  name.  The  street 
signs  and  the  shop  signs  have  been  done  over  into 
Czech. 

In  front  of  the  city,  on  the  side  facing  the  Austrians 
and  the  Hungarians,  are  the  barbed- wire  entangle- 
ments and  the  trenches  and  the  machine  guns  and 
the  soldiers  that  I  spoke  about  earlier  in  this  article. 

A  street-car  line  used  to  run  from  Vienna  to 
Presburg.  To-day  travelers  going  by  that  line  have 
to  get  out  of  the  cars  one  hundred  yards  before  they 
reach  the  border,  walk  up  to  the  barbed-wire  entan- 
glements that  the  Czechs  have  erected,  go  through 
the  customs,  and  then  walk  another  one  hundred 
yards  on  the  other  side  of  the  border  and  get  into 
another  street  car.  No  more  cars  can  run  through. 
Common  sense  and  rapid  transit  have  received  a 
severe  kick  from  national  hatred. 

The  Magyars  are  so  ferociously  angry  at  the  Czechs 
that  the  mere  mention  of  the  name  Czech  is  enough 
to  make  most  of  the  Magyars  within  hearing  have 
near-apoplexy.  They  claim  that  the  Czechs  have 
seized  Magyar  territory  to  which  they  have  no  right 
at  all.    The  Hungarian  army  vanished  into  thin  air 

170 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

just  after  the  armistice,  and  it  was  then,  or  soon 
afterward,  that  the  Czechs  occupied  Presburg  with- 
out resistance.  The  Magyars  claim  that  they  could 
never  have  done  it  if  there  had  been  any  Magyar 
army  left. 

The  Czechs  took  Presburg  because  it  is  a  part  of 
Slovakia.  True,  it  is  a  Hungarian  city,  but  none 
the  less  it  is  part  of  Slovakia.  It  is  also  a  port  on 
the  Danube,  and  the  Czechs  have  got  to  have  a  port 
on  the  Danube.  In  addition  to  taking  the  city  of 
Presburg  and  the  solidly  Magyar  parts  of  Slovakia, 
the  Czechs  also  took  a  big  stretch  of  land  known  as 
the  Grosse  Schutt,  which  is  a  rich  territory  between 
two  branches  of  the  Danube.  It  is  sixty  miles  long 
and  thirty  miles  broad.  Its  population  consists  of 
more  than  100,000  Magyars  and  only  a  few  hun- 
dred Slovaks.  It  is  neither  part  of  Slovakia  nor 
occupied  by  Slovaks,  but  the  Czechs  declare  that 
they  must  have  it  in  order  to  control  their  part  of  the 
Danube.  The  Magyars  are  fairly  tearing  their  hair 
out  by  the  roots  because  of  it.  Exactly  the  same 
tension  exists  between  the  Czechs  and  the  Magyars 
over  Presburg  as  exists  between  the  Italians  and  the 
Jugoslavs  over  Fiume.  The  Fiume  situation,  how- 
ever, has  received  more  advertising. 

The  Magyars  say  that  there  are  700,000  Magyars 
whom  the  Czechs  have  taken  into  Czechoslovakia 
by  main  force  and  against  their  wills.  They  say 
that  they  will  never  endure  it.  They  froth  at  the 
mouth  and  gasp  hoarsely  when  discussing  the  matter. 
They  issue  posters  declaring  that  Presburg  is  the 
Magyar  Strasburg.  They  say  that  it's  Alsace- 
Lorraine  all  over  again.  They  get  out  propaganda 
12  171 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

maps  showing  the  gluttonous  Czech  minority  which 
is  controlling  Czechoslovakia.  They  declare  that 
they  must  and  will  have  the  city  of  Presburg  and  the 
700,000  Magyars  back  again  in  Hungary.  They  dis- 
seminate passionate  propaganda  among  the  Slovaks. 

The  Czechs  meanwhile  are  not  idle.  They  erect 
barbed-wire  entanglements  and  dig  trenches.  They 
get  out  propaganda  of  their  own,  showing  stalwart 
Slovak  farmers  sweeping  the  Magyar  rats  out  of 
Slovakia.  They  say  that  they  need  the  territory 
which  they  have  taken,  and  that  they  intend  to 
keep  it  in  spite  of  all  the  Magyar  protests  and  all 
the  Magyar  threats. 

They  have  instituted  a  censorship  which  goes 
through  letters  coming  in  to  Magyars  living  in 
Presburg.  Many  Magyars  claim  that  they  can  get 
no  letters  at  all  from  the  outside  world. 

The  Magyars  are  accused  by  the  Czechs  of  financ- 
ing Bolshevik  agitations  in  Slovakia.  The  Czechs 
are  accused  by  the  Magyars  of  harboring  Bolsheviks 
who  helped  to  wreck  Hungary,  as  well  as  of  spreading 
stories  of  Magyar  intrigue  in  order  to  gain  sympathy. 
The  Magyars  claim  that  the  Slovaks  can't  under- 
stand the  Czech  language.  The  Czechs  claim  that 
the  Magyars  stole  all  their  culture  from  the  Slovaks 
— a  charge  which  causes  the  Magyars  to  burst  into 
horrid  peals  of  wild  laughter  and  almost  go  mad 
with  fury.  The  Magyars  say  that  all  Slovaks  loathe 
the  Czechs  and  love  the  Magyars.  The  Czechs 
claim  that  all  Slovaks  despise  the  Magyars  and 
worship  the  Czechs.  And  so  on  through  day  after 
day  and  night  after  night,  so  long  as  there  is  anyone 
to  listen.     And  when  there  isn't  anyone  to  listen  it 

172 


HANDING  IT  BACK 

is  generally  believed  that  they  talk  to  themselves. 
It  is  interesting,  but  somewhat  dazing. 

I  asked  Prime  Minister  Tusar  what  he  thought  the 
outcome  of  the  bad  blood  between  Bohemia  and 
Slovakia  would  be. 

"The  relations  with  Slovakia  are  simply  a  problem 
of  patience,"  said  Mr.  Tusar.  "One  must  wait 
until  the  Magyar  agitation  there  loses  ground.  Then 
matters  will  be  finally  settled  of  their  own  accord." 

I  asked  Magyar  leaders  in  Slovakia  why  they 
didn't  stop  their  ructions,  let  the  Czechs  take  what 
they  want,  settle  down  to  work  and  try  to  get  along 
somehow. 

"Isn't  there  some  way  that  you  can  arrive  at  an 
understanding  with  the  Czechs?"  I  asked. 

The  Magyar  leaders,  one  and  all,  pounded  the 
table  with  their  fists. 

"  No !  No !  Never ! ' '  they  shouted.  "  No !  No ! 
Never!" 

I  know  that  there  are  many  people  in  America 
who  think  that  the  Peace  Conference  did  a  pretty 
good  job,  and  that  Central  European  affairs  can  be 
regulated  by  the  League  of  Nations.  I  had  occasion 
to  remark  on  that  fact  to  an  American  who  has 
been  going  up  and  down  in  Central  Europe  for  the 
past  year  on  official  business. 

"I  know  that  there  are  people  like  that,"  he  said, 
wearily  and  tolerantly,  "but  you  want  to  remember" 
— and  here  he  heaved  a  sigh  that  blew  the  ash  from 
his  cigar — "you  want  to  remember  that  those 
people  don't  know  anything  about  Central  Europe." 


IV 

FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

THROUGHOUT  Hungary,  on  blank  walls,  public 
buildings,  railroad  stations,  signboards,  shop 
windows,  and  other  convenient  surfaces,  there  are 
large  posters,  medium-sized  posters,  and  small 
posters  depicting  a  cracked,  blood-red  object  and 
bearing  the  words, 'W^m/  Nem!  Soha!'* 

The  newcomer  to  Hungary  is  puzzled  by  them. 
He  doesn't  know  whether  the  cracked,  blood-red 
object  represents  a  new  sort  of  waffle  iron,  a  picture 
puzzle,  or  a  highly  efficacious  brand  of  mustard 
plaster. 

So  the  newcomer  waits  until  he  catches  an  English- 
speaking  Hungarian,  and  then  he  questions  him. 

"Could  you  tell  me,"  he  asks,  "the  meaning  of  this 
'Nem!   Nem!'  stuff?" 

"No!  No!  Never!"  shouts  the  Hungarian, 
fiercely. 

"But  why  not?"  persists  the  newcomer.  "There 
can't  be  any  harm  in  telling.  If  you  prefer  you  can 
whisper  it  to  me." 

"No!  No!  Never!"  declares  the  Hungarian, 
still  more  fiercely.  Then  he  takes  the  newcomer  by 
the  arm  and  leads  him  to  a  quiet  coffee  house,  or 

174 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

kave-haz,  as  the  Hungarians  so  piquantly  spell  it, 
and  tells  him  a  long,  long  story  which  always  begins 
with  the  mystic  words,  "For  over  a  thousand 
years — " 

In  order  that  we  may  understand  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Hungarian,  or  Magyar — for  the  Hun- 
garian always  refers  to  himself  and  is  always  re- 
ferred to  by  other  Europeans  as  a  Magyar — we  must 
put  our  supposers  to  work  and  do  a  little  intensive 
supposing. 

Let  us  suppose,  for  example,  that  round  the  year 
1820  a  race  of  people  known  as  the  Grabbonians, 
who  came  from  the  poverty-stricken  country  of 
Grabbonia  up  along  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea, 
where  nearly  every  large  rock  seems  to  have  some 
sort  of  half-baked  nation  clinging  to  it,  had  emigrated 
from  Grabbonia  to  the  United  States  and  settled 
in  the  state  of  South  Dakota. 

Since  South  Dakota  had  only  a  few  Americans 
within  its  confines  at  that  time,  and  since  the 
Grabbonians  could  converse  in  only  the  guttural 
Grabbish  tongue,  the  Grabbonians  formed  them- 
selves into  colonies  and  retained  the  manners,  cus- 
toms, and  speech  of  far-off  Grabbonia.  They  soon 
controlled  the  state  officials  and  the  courts  of  justice, 
and  through  them  the  schools.  The  Grabbonian 
language  was  taught  in  all  the  schools  of  the  state, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  it  was  a  part  of  America; 
and  it  wasn't  long  before  the  Grabbonians  began 
to  think  that  Americans  in  South  Dakota  had  no 
rights  whatever.  In  fact,  they  frequently  talked  of 
driving  out  the  Americans  who  had  the  outrageous 
idea  that  just  because  the  Grabbonians  were  living 

175 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

in  America  they  ought  to  be  Americans,  too.  Be- 
sides, the  Grabbonians  were  very  peevish  because  the 
United  States  wouldn't  found  a  Grabbonian  uni- 
versity for  them  in  South  Dakota.  They  were  very 
peevish  indeed  over  this.  They  told  the  rest  of  the 
world  that  they  were  being  frightfully  oppressed, 
and  a  number  of  foreign  authors  wrote  books  about 
the  American  oppression  of  the  Grabbonians,  almost 
skinning  the  United  States  alive  for  its  heartlessness. 

And  then  one  fine  day — our  supposers  are  still 
revolving  at  high  speed,  of  course — America  went  to 
war  with  the  Oriental  nation  of  Goulasha.  By  an 
unfortunate  chain  of  circumstances  America  was 
defeated.  And  when  the  terms  of  peace  were  an- 
nounced the  state  of  South  Dakota  was  made  a 
Grabbonian  state,  with  its  central  government  in 
Grabbonia  on  the  Black  Sea;  and  all  because  the 
Grabbonians  slightly  outnumbered  the  Americans. 
It  was  taken  entirely  away  from  the  United  States, 
and  the  United  States  was  instructed  that  the 
Americans  living  in  South  Dakota  would  have  to  be 
subject  to  Grabbonia  on  the  Black  Sea. 

The  Americans  both  in  South  Dakota  and  out  of  it 
were  almost  hysterical  with  rage  over  the  situation. 
The  things  they  said  about  the  Grabbonians  could 
scarcely  be  written  on  asbestos  paper  without  scorch- 
ing it.  All  Americans  united  in  saying  that  since 
the  American  nation  had  been  formed  in  1776,  and 
since  all  United  States  territory  had  been  obtained 
fairly  by  them  before  the  Grabbonians  had  ever 
come  on  the  scene,  and  since  the  Grabbonians  had 
come  to  them  as  immigrants,  they  had  no  national 
rights  whatsoever  to  the  land  that  they  occupied, 

176 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

even  though  they  might  outnumber  the  Americans 
in  South  Dakota. 

At  this  point  we  can  shut  off  the  power,  gently 
bring  our  supposers  to  a  full  stop,  and  get  back  to 
Hungary. 

The  cracked,  blood-red  object  depicted  on  the 
posters  which  are  plastered  all  over  Hungary  is  a 
representation  of  Hungary  as  it  was  before  the  war. 
The  cracks  represent  the  new  boundary  lines  along 
which  the  coimtry  has  been  divided  by  the  terms  of 
the  Peace  Treaty.  The  words,  ''Nem!  Nem! 
Soha!"  are  the  Magyar  rendering  of  the  EngHsh 
phrase,  "No!  No!  Never!"  And  the  argument  on 
which  the  Magyars  base  their  feverish  and  emphatic 
words  is  exactly  the  same  argument  which  Americans 
would  advance  if  they  should  lose  the  state  of  South 
Dak:ota  to  the  hypothetical  Grabbonians. 

As  to  the  validity  of  their  argument,  I  can  only  say 
that,  so  far  as  I  could  learn,  every  American  who  has 
been  in  Hungary  during  the  past  year,  including 
General  Bandholtz,  chief  of  the  American  Military 
Mission,  believes  that  Hungary  has  been  unfairly 
treated  and  that  the  terms  of  the  Peace  Treaty  as 
regards  Hungary's  dismemberment  should  be  revised. 

When  one  gets  back  a  thousand  years  and  prods 
roimd  among  the  dead  bones  of  the  tribes  that  came 
boiling  out  of  Mongolia  and  down  from  Russia 
and  up  from  the  Balkan  Peninsula,  and  chased 
one  another  madly  up  and  down  the  surface  of 
Central  Europe — when  one  gets  back  into  those  rare 
old  days  one  can't  be  absolutely  sure  of  dates,  facts, 
or  anything  else.  When  one  states  that  the  eastern 
Goths  moved  out  of  Rumania  on  or  round  moving 

177 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

day  in  the  year  452,  and  that  the  Gepids  came  in 
behind  them  with  such  speed  that  they  walked  all 
over  the  heels  of  the  last  eastern  Goths  to  depart, 
one  is  taking  a  long  chance  on  being  called  a  liar  by 
some  one  who  has  other,  but  not  necessarily  more 
trustworthy,  data  in  his  possession.  There  is  still 
some  difference  of  opinion  in  the  United  States  as 
to  which  admiral  was  responsible  for  the  victory  at 
Santiago  in  1898,  and  grave  doubt  exists  in  many 
quarters  as  to  whether  the  battle  of  Bunker  Hill 
took  place  on  Bunker  Hill  or  on  Breed's  Hill.  Con- 
sequently there  is  a  thick,  dark-brown  haze  over  a 
large  percentage  of  the  happenings  which  took  place 
back  in  the  years  907,  iioi,  1253,  and  all  other  ad- 
jacent dates,  and  a  wary  eye  must  be  cocked  toward 
those  people  who  assure  us  that  such  and  such  was 
true  at  any  such  far-off  period. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dig  into  history,  however,  to 
discover  that  Hungary  before  the  war  was  a  natural 
country,  just  as  Bohemia,  the  Czech  part  of  Czecho- 
slovakia, is  also  a  natural  country.  Its  natural 
boundaries  were  perfect.  On  the  north,  the  west, 
the  east,  and  the  southeast  it  was  rimmed  with  high 
mountains.  On  the  south  its  boundary  was  formed 
by  large  rivers.  It  was — and  is — one  of  the  most 
perfect  closed  basins  that  can  be  found  on  any  of 
the  five  continents.  The  Czechs  argue  that  their 
country  is  a  natural  country  and  has  always  belonged 
to  them;  therefore  the  millions  of  Germans  within 
their  boundaries  must  bow  to  the  will  of  the  Czechs. 
For  the  same  reason  Hungary  wants  to  keep  her 
natural  country  intact.  Strangely  enough,  there 
are  many  people  who  recognize  the  justice  of  the 

178 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

Czechs  argument,  but  who  cannot  see  where  a 
similar  argument  on  the  part  of  the  Magyars  is 
worth  its  weight  in  sour  apples.  As  a  result  Hun- 
gary's boundaries  to-day  are  nothing  but  red  lines 
on  the  maps.  They  are  unnatural  boundaries,  and 
Hungary  is  determined  to  get  back  most  of  the  parts 
that  have  been  taken  from  her. 

In  the  north  Hungary  has  lost  Slovakia  and 
Rusinia — Slovakia  being  the  toe  of  the  shoe-shaped 
Czechoslovak  state,  and  Rusinia  being  the  extreme 
tip  of  the  toe.  In  the  east  she  has  lost  the  huge 
rough  triangle  of  Transylvania  to  the  Rumanians. 
In  the  west  she  has  lost  the  small  strip  of  German 
West  Hungary  to  Austria.  And  in  the  south  she 
has  lost  Croatia  and  Slovenia  to  the  Jugoslavs.  All 
that  remains  is  the  Magyar  kernel  which  was  the 
center  of  the  old  Hungary. 

There  is  practically  no  outcry  from  the  Magyars 
over  the  loss  of  Croatia  and  Slovenia — the  districts 
behind  Fiume  and  the  Dalmatian  coast  which  now 
make  up  the  upper  end  of  Jugoslavia.  The  Croats 
have  been  a  distinct,  warlike,  and  progressive  peo- 
ple for  centuries.  Until  the  day  of  the  armistice 
they  fought  hard  and  valiantly  against  Italy  and 
the  Allies  on  the  side  of  Austria-Hungary.  So  the 
Magyars  esteem  the  Croats  highly  as  brother  war- 
riors, whereas  they  loathe  the  Czechs.  Of  all  their 
enemies,  the  Italians  held  the  Croat  regiments  of 
the  Austro-Hungarian  army  in  the  highest  respect. 
The  Magyars  have  great  sympathy  and  liking  for 
them.  For  years  Croatia  has  been  practically  an 
autonomous  state  under  Hungary.  Hungary  is 
sorry  to  lose  Croatia,  but  so  far  as  I  could  fi;)4 

179 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

out  there  is  no  bitterness  over  the  sHcing  off  of 
Croatia. 

But  over  the  losses  to  Czechoslovakia,  to  Rumania, 
and  to  Austria,  the  Magyars  are  making  such  an 
uproar  that  the  eardrums  of  any  stranger  in  Hungary 
are  constantly  aquiver.  They  say  that  the  wrench- 
ing away  of  these  parts  of  Hungary  is  comparable 
only  to  the  partition  of  Poland  and  the  theft  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  by  Germany.  ' '  For  over  a  thousand 
years — "  they  tell  you. 

One  hears  that  phrase,  "For  over  a  thousand 
years,"  so  many  times  in  the  course  of  each  day 
spent  in  Hungary  that  he  finds  himself  walking  along 
the  streets  whispering  over  and  over  again,  in  time 
with  his  footsteps,  "For  over  a  thousand  years! 
For  over  a  thousand  years!"  He  unconsciously 
fits  it  to  all  the  tunes  the  Hungarian  orchestras  play. 
The  rattle  of  horses'  hoofs  on  the  pavement  seems 
to  clack  out  the  words,  ' '  For  over  a  thousand  years ! 
For  over  a  thousand  years!"  They  get  on  the 
brain.     One  almost  goes  mad  from  hearing  them. 

None  the  less,  they  are  the  groundwork  of  all 
Magyar  arguments.  Because  of  those  thousand 
years  the  Magyars  grit  their  teeth  and  ejaculate, 
"Nem!  Nem!  Soha!"  when  asked  to  submit  to  the 
partition  of  their  country.     And  this  is  the  way  of  it : 

The  Magyars  are  the  direct  descendants  of  an 
Asiatic  tribe  of  people  who  hailed  from  the  rich 
lands  round  the  Sea  of  Azov,  and  whose  chief  means 
of  support  consisted  of  swooping  down  on  a  neigh- 
boring tribe,  beating  it  to  a  decided  and  scarcely 
distinguishable  pulp,  and  appropriating  the  remain- 
ing   pieces.     It  is  highly  probable  that  if  Attila, 

i8o 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

the  well-known  Hun,  had  not  damaged  his  reputa- 
tion by  his  loose  methods  of  waging  war,  the  Magyars 
would  claim  a  distant  relationship  with  Attila's 
gang.  As  things  stand  at  present  Attila  is  rather 
neglected  in  most  stories  of  Magyar  beginnings, 
and  the  original  Magyar  leader  is  stated  to  be  the 
great  chieftain  Arpad,  who  is  represented  in  all 
Magyar  paintings  as  being  a  proud-looking,  dark- 
brown  man  with  a  gold  helmet,  a  black  curly  beard, 
bracelets  round  his  biceps,  and  a  hand  like  a  Virginia 
ham. 

However,  none  of  these  early  ancestors  were  any- 
thing to  brag  about  so  far  as  chivalry  and  loving- 
kindness  were  concerned.  When  a  Roman  emperor 
or  general  came  home  from  the  wars  with  a  nice 
parcel  of  bush-league  kings  and  generals  as  captives, 
and  was  honored  with  a  triumph  for  his  clever  work, 
the  captives  were  marched  through  the  streets  of 
Rome  in  chains,  and  shortly  after  the  procession  had 
passed  the  reviewing  stand  the  captives  were  beaten 
with  sticks  until  their  skin  was  cut  to  ribbons,  and 
then  they  were  dragged  over  to  the  Mamertine 
Prison  and  thrown  into  an  underground  cell,  and 
finally,  as  soon  as  their  bruises  and  cuts  had  begun 
to  sting,  a  prominent  government  official  came 
round  and  stabbed  them  to  death  and  threw  them 
into  the  Tiber.  None  of  the  old-timers  was  a  shrink- 
ing violet ;  and  to  descend  from  the  best  of  them  was 
about  as  discreditable  as  to  descend  from  the  worst. 

When  we  first  hear  of  the  Magyars  they  are  swoop- 
ing hither  and  yon  along  the  shores  of  the  Black  Sea, 
now  taking  a  fall  out  of  the  Petchenegs  and  again 
taking  a  fall  out  of  the  Cumanians,  but  always  taking 

i8i 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

a  fall  out  of  somebody.  Ever  since  the  beginning 
of  things  the  Magyars  have  always  been  a  warrior 
people.  They  have  always  been  in  a  fight  with 
somebody  so  long  as  there  was  anything  to  fight 
about.  They  have  fought  almost  everybody  in  the 
world  at  one  time  or  another,  and  they  show  signs 
of  not  being  through  even  yet. 

While  the  Magyars  were  surging  along  the  borders 
of  the  Black  Sea,  the  great  natural  basin  which  later 
became  Hungary  was  being  occupied  in  compara- 
tively rapid  succession  by  various  queer  brands  of 
people,  all  of  whom  either  lived  to  fight  or  fought  to 
live,  as  everyone  did  in  those  dear  dead  days. 
There  were  the  Sarmatians,  the  Scythians,  the  Celts, 
the  Romans,  the  Goths,  the  Teutons,  the  Huns,  the 
Slavs,  the  Avars,  and  probably  a  number  of  others 
whose  fighting  abilities  were  not  sufficient  to  get 
their  names  mentioned  in  history.  But  each  of  the 
tribes  and  races  which  entered  the  big  mountain- 
rimmed  basin  made  an  attempt  to  consolidate  it  and 
hold  it — and  couldn't. 

In  the  year  895  the  Magyars  left  the  shores  of  the 
Black  Sea,  crossed  the  mountains,  and  came  into  the 
territory  which  they  have  held  ever  since.  Even  the 
Hungarian  historians  are  unable  to  agree  on  the 
reasons  which  brought  them  in.  Some  say  that  they 
were  invited  to  come  in  to  do  a  little  high-grade 
fighting,  others  say  that  they  were  compelled  to 
move  in  because  certain  tribes  on  the  outside  were 
too  strong  for  them  and  kept  crowding  them.  At 
any  rate,  all  historians  agree  that  it  was  in  the  year 
895  that  they  moved  in.  They  moved  in,  took  the 
country,  consolidated  it  and  held  it,  and  on  this  fact 

1S2 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

they  base  their  argument  which  starts,  "For  over 
a  thousand  years — "  Until  the  Magyars  came 
nobody  had  ever  been  able  to  get  a  nation  started. 
The  Magyars  succeeded  where  everybody  else  had 
failed,  and  for  over  a  thousand  years  they  have  kept 
right  on  being  successful.  The  few  scattered  peoples 
who  were  wandering  round  the  Hungarian  basin 
were  absorbed  by  the  Magyars  and  became  Magyars. 

The  ancestors  of  the  Slovaks  in  the  north,  the 
Magyars  claim,  were  colonists  who  were  brought  in 
by  contractors  two  hundred  years  after  the  Magyars 
arrived — contract  labor  introduced  for  the  purpose 
of  clearing  the  forests.  On  this,  as  well  as  on  the 
argument  that  the  majority  of  Slovaks  do  not  wish 
to  be  separated  from  Hungary,  the  Magyars  base 
their  ear-piercing  howls  against  the  cutting  away 
of  Slovakia  from  Hungary. 

The  Rusins,  they  claim,  were  immigrants  who 
crossed  the  mountains  almost  five  hundred  years 
after  the  Magyars  arrived,  for  the  purpose  of  pastur- 
ing their  cattle  on  the  Carpathian  slopes. 

The  Rumanians  of  Transylvania,  declare  the 
Magyars,  were  wandering  shepherds  who  didn't 
start  crossing  the  mountains  from  Rumania  into  the 
Hungarian  basin  until  the  year  1245. 

As  for  the  Germans  who  occupy  German  West 
Hungary,  the  Magyars  say  that  they  were  immi- 
grants whom  the  Magyars  encouraged  to  come  into 
Hungary  from  11 50  to  1250,  and  again  from  171 1 
until  1783. 

The  basis  of  all  European  argument  is  history.  A 
European  can  dive  headlong  into  a  mass  of  historical 
facts  and  semihistorical  facts,  come  up  grasping  a 

183 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

handful  of  bleached  bones,  and  rattle  them  together 
loudly  enough  to  drown  out  all  other  sounds  within 
a  ten-mile  radius.  To  Americans  who  are  accus- 
tomed to  regard  the  founding  of  Plymouth  Colony 
and  the  courtship  of  Miles  Standish  as  the  very 
dawn  of  history,  the  European  history  hound  is  an 
incomprehensible  and  unmitigated  bore.  He  won't 
talk  about  anything  but  history.  In  the  course  of 
twenty  minutes'  conversation  he  drags  in  unpro- 
nounceable names,  dates  with  six  inches  of  dust  on 
them,  tribes  of  people  that  haven't  done  any  active 
tribing  since  the  year  1099,  and  battles  that  took 
place  three  years  before  the  Norman  Conquest  of 
Britain  was  thought  of.  He  also  expects  his  listeners 
to  have  a  perfect  and  complete  understanding  of 
everything  he  is  talking  about.  This  habit  is  not 
restricted  to  one  or  two  Central  Europeans,  but  is 
common  to  nearly  all  of  them.  The  Poles,  the 
Czechs,  the  Slovaks,  the  Ukrainians,  the  Magyars, 
the  Serbs,  the  Croats,  the  Bulgarians,  the  Rumani- 
ans— all  of  them  quote  history  in  support  of  their 
claims  that  they  deserve  more  than  they  possess. 

Let  me  give  you  a  sample  of  the  historical  dis- 
course— not  to  hold  up  anyone  to  ridicule,  but  to 
explain  why  it  is  that  an  American  finds  Central 
European  affairs  difficult  to  grasp  unless  he  has  read 
at  least  two  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  of  assorted 
histories.  I  started  to  discuss  with  a  Magyar  the 
present-day  Rumanian  invasion  of  Hungary — the 
invasion  in  which  the  Rumanians  stripped  Hungary 
of  horses,  cows,  sheep,  seed  corn,  stores  of  food, 
farming  implements,  railroad  cars,  and  practically 
everything  else  that  wasn't  cemented  to  the  ground. 

184 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

"There  are  certain  parts  of  Hungary,"  I  said, 
unwarily,  "which  have  been  occupied  by  Rumanians 
almost  as  long  as  by  Magyars,  aren't  there?" 

That  question  was  all  the  Magyar  needed  to  set 
him   going. 

"No!  No!  Never!"  he  exclaimed.  'The  most 
cruel  people  in  the  world  were  the  Beskides,  or 
Bessenyok,  and  Constantinus  Porphyrogenitus  says 
that  ..." 

"Hold  on,  there!"  I  begged  him.  "How  do  those 
cruel  people  get  into  this,  and  who  was  that  man 
you  mentioned  so  lightly?" 

"Dear  sir,"  said  the  Magyar,  earnestly,  "the 
Olahs  claim  ..." 

"Olahs?  Olahs?  This  is  the  first  time  I  ever 
heard  of  them!  Who  let  them  into  this  argument, 
and  what  are  Olahs?" 

"Dear  sir,  the  Olahs  are  the  Rumanians  of  to-day. 
The  Olahs,  or  Rumanians,  claim  ..." 

"Look  here:  if  the  Olahs  and  the  Rumanians 
are  the  same  thing,  why  not  call  them  Rumanians 
and  leave  out  the  Ol^hs?  That  Olah  stuff  means 
next  to  nothing  to  me  or  to  any  other  American. 
So  far  as  we  are  concerned,  you  might  as  well  call 
them  Blups  or  Glups  or  Oompahs.  If  you  want  us 
to  understand  you,  you  must  be  simple  and  concise. 
Remember,  above  all  else,  to  be  simple." 

"Very  well,  dear  sir.  The  014hs,  or  Rumanians, 
claim  that  they  have  inhabited  the  eastern  end  of 
Hungary  continuously  since  Trajan  colonized  that 
territory;   but  Constantinus  Porphyrogenitus  .  .  ." 

"Just  a  moment!     Who  is  this  Trajan?" 

"The  Roman  emperor,  Trajan,  dear  sir.  But 
i8s 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

this  statement  is  false  and  absurd,  for  Flavius  Vo- 
piscus,  Eutropius,  and  Rufus  Lextus  ..." 

"Here,  here!  This  is  getting  too  complicated! 
You  have  referred  to  Constantinus  Something-or- 
other.  What  has  this  fellow  got  to  do  with  this 
crystal  maze?  And  would  you  mind  calling  him 
Con,  for  short?" 

"Ah  yes!  Constantinus  Porphyrogenitus I  We 
have  his  word  that  ..." 

"But  who  was  he?  Who  was  he?  Why  quote 
him?     And  please  call  him  Con ! " 

"Dear  sir,  Con  was  a  Greek  emperor.  In  nine 
hundred  and  fifty  Con  tells  us  that  the  Beskides,  the 
most  cruel  enemies  of  the  Magyars,  lived  next  to 
the  territory  in  which  the  Olahs,  or  Rumanians, 
claimed  to  have  lived,  so  that  they  couldn't  have 
lived  there  at  all." 

"I  don't  see  it.  I  don't  know  what  you're  driving 
at.     You'll  have  to  make  it  clearer." 

"Dear  sir,  because  of  the  extreme  cruelty  of  the 
Beskides  the  territory  next  to  them  was  left  unin- 
habited. The  Olahs,  or  Rumanians,  claim  that  their 
ancestors  lived  in  that  territory  when  the  Magyars 
entered  Hungary  in  eight  hundred  and  ninety -five; 
but  Constantinus  Porphyrogenitus  informs  us  that  in 
eight  hundred  and  ninety -six  there  was  nobody  liv- 
ing there.  The  Magyars  had  entered  Hungary,  but 
the  eastern  portion  of  the  land  was  uninhabited." 

"Well,  what  did  Con  know  about  it?  Was  he 
writing  for  a  Greek  newspaper,  or  what?" 

* '  No,  dear  sir !  Constantinus  Porphyrogenitus  was 
an  emperor  who  personally  investigated  conditions  in 
Hungary  for  the  sole  purpose  of  investigating." 

i86 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

"But  isn't  there  a  chance  that  if  Con  wrote  his 
report  in  nine  hundred  and  fifty  on  conditions  which 
existed  in  eight  hundred  and  ninety-six,  he  may 
have  made  some  bad  sHps?" 

"It  is  hardly  possible,  dear  sir.  An  emperor's 
position  is  such  that  he  would  have  no  occasion  to 
distort  the  truth." 

"There  is  something  in  what  you  say.  At  any 
rate,  we  will  allow  that  point  to  pass.  But  you  said 
something  about  the  Emperor  Trajan  colonizing 
that  territory.     How  about  that?" 

"Dear  sir,  the  Emperor  Trajan  colonized  that 
territory;  but  each  of  the  three  authors,  Flavius 
Vopiscus,  Eutropius,  and  Rufus  Lextus,  records  the 
fact  that  the  Roman  emperors  moved  every  in- 
habitant out  of  that  region.  The  Rumanians,  or 
Olahs,  claim  that  they  descended  from  the  Romans 
living  there,  but  there  was  nobody  living  there,  so 
their  claims  are  false." 

"That  sounds  fair  enough.  But  if  the  Rumanians 
didn't  descend  from  somebody  who  didn't  exist, 
whom  did  they  descend  from?" 

"Dear  sir,  in  the  year  ten  hundred  and  ten  the 
great  Saint  Stephen,  king  of  the  Magyars,  sent  out 
Magyars  to  colonize  the  uninhabited  region  which 
the  Rumanians  claim  to  have  occupied  before  our 
arrival.  These  colonies  were  increased  from  time 
to  time,  until  the  Tartars  ..." 

"How  did  the  Tartars  get  into  the  story?  I 
thought  we  were  talking  about  Rumanians." 

"The  Tartars,  dear  sir,  swept  down  from  Tartary 
in  the  year  twelve  hundred  and  forty-five,  and  mas- 
sacred great  numbers  of  Magyars.  They  killed  off 
13  1^7 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

thousands  and  thousands  of  the  Magyar  colonists 
in  Transylvania  and  put  an  end  to  Magyar  expan- 
sion, so  the  kings  of  Hungary  permitted  wandering 
shepherds  from  Rumania  and  Bulgaria  to  cross  the 
mountains  with  their  flocks  and  herds.  These  wan- 
dering shepherds  are  the  Olahs,  or  Rumanians,  of 
to-day.  Therefore,  if  Transylvania  is  taken  away 
from  the  Magyars  and  given  to  the  Rumanians,  or 
Olahs,  dear  sir,  it  will  be  taken  from  a  nation  which 
first  made  the  land  safe,  and  given  to  the  descendants 
of  wandering  shepherds  who  were  received  in  un- 
suspecting friendship." 

That,  in  brief,  was  the  manner  in  which  the  Mag- 
yar presented  the  case.  He  referred  to  many  other 
things  in  the  course  of  his  chat.  He  proved  by 
philology  that  the  Rumanian  language  didn't  come 
from  the  place  where  the  Rumanians  claimed  that  it 
did.  He  dragged  Albania  and  Thessaly  into  the 
story.  He  devoted  a  considerable  amount  of  time 
to  the  western  Goths,  the  eastern  Goths,  the  Gepids, 
and  the  Avars,  He  spoke  of  Krass6-Sz6reny  and 
upward  of  thirty  other  districts  that  I  couldn't  make 
a  note  of  because  I  hadn't  the  slightest  idea  how  to 
spell  them.  He  worked  Saint  Ladislaus  into  the 
narrative,  as  well  as  King  Geza  H,  the  Wallon 
Italians,  the  Saxons,  King  Andrew  II,  the  German 
Order  of  Knights,  King  Bela  III,  the  Roman  Catho- 
lic Church,  the  Greek  Church,  Rumanian  national 
literature,  the  lack  of  culture  among  the  early 
Rumanians — and  all  these  features,  I  believe,  are 
quite  necessary  to  a  lucid  and  scholarly  presentation 
of  the  case. 

If  I  were  to  go  at  all  thoroughly  into  any  one  of 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

the  many  moot  points  which  are  constantly  being 
mooted  by  the  Czechs  and  the  Slovaks  and  the  Ru- 
manians and  the  Jugoslavs  and  the  Magyars  on  the 
largest  and  loudest  mooters  on  which  any  mooting 
has  been  done  in  modern  times,  this  little  thumb- 
nail sketch  would  run  on  to  an  unconscionable  length. 
Several  volumes  could  be  written  on  the  historical 
claims  which  the  Czechs  and  the  Magyars  set  up  to 
that  part  of  old  Hungary  which  is  now  Slovakia. 
Several  more  volumes  could  be  written  on  the 
Rumanian  and  the  Magyar  claims  to  Transylvania. 
To  cut  down  the  length  of  any  one  of  these  claims  is 
to  be  accused  of  being  superficial.  The  Slavs  who 
read  these  paragraphs  will  accuse  me  of  being  suf- 
ficiently superficial  to  float  round  on  a  bowl  of 
skimmed  milk. 

There  is  another  great  point  of  argument  which 
centers  in  the  old  Hungary,  and  that  is  the  question 
of  oppression.  The  Rumanians  claim  that  the 
Rumanians  in  Hungary  were  terribly  oppressed  by 
the  Magyars.  The  Czechs  and  some  of  the  Slovaks 
claim  that  the  Slovaks  in  Hungary  suffered  untold 
agonies  from  Magyar  oppression.  The  Magyars, 
on  the  other  hand,  claim  that  these  people  weren't 
oppressed  at  all.  In  fact,  they  claim  that  the  per- 
centage of  Rumanian  schools  for  the  Rumanians  in 
Hungary  was  greater  than  the  percentage  of  Ru- 
manian schools  for  Rumanians  in  Rumania.  They 
claim  that  the  Slovaks  and  the  Rumanians  and  any 
other  nationalities  within  the  Magyar  domain  could 
do  as  they  pleased  so  long  as  they  weren't  guilty  of 
disloyalty  to  the  Magyar  nation.  It  is  certain  that 
the  Slovaks  who  have  educated  themselves  in  Magyar 

189 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

colleges  have  risen  to  high  positions  in  Magyar  uni- 
versity faculties,  in  Magyar  courts,  and  in  the  Mag- 
yar government.  The  people  of  Slovakia  under  the 
Magyars  developed  their  Slovak  arts,  learned  Slovak 
in  the  primary  schools,  spoke  the  language  without 
interference,  and  wore  their  national  costumes  when- 
ever they  pleased.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the 
Rusins  and  the  Rumanians  of  the  old  Hungary. 
The  Magyars  have  tried  to  educate  them  along 
Magyar  lines,  just  as  the  Czechs  will  try  to  educate 
the  Germans  along  Czech  lines,  and  just  as  America 
is  trying  to  educate  everybody  in  America  along 
American  lines.  Some  people  point  to  the  illiteracy 
in  Slovakia,  Rusinia,  and  Transylvania  as  a  sign  of 
Magyar  oppression.  The  same  type  of  illiteracy 
exists  in  the  mountains  of  Tennessee,  Kentucky, 
Virginia,  and  Maine,  and  for  the  same  reasons. 
The  peasant  people  of  southern  Italy  yield  the  palm 
to  almost  nobody  in  the  matter  of  illiteracy,  but 
they  aren't  oppressed,  and  nobody  tries  to  argue 
that  they  are. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  Magyars  were  repre- 
sented by  many  stupid  and  cruel  governors  at  various 
times  in  various  parts  of  the  Magyar  kingdom,  and 
that  these  people  behaved  toward  the  people  under 
them  as  stupid  and  cruel  people  always  behave. 
There  is  also  no  doubt  that  a  great  deal  of  bun- 
combe has  been  written  about  Magyar  oppression 
by  the  politicians  of  those  portions  of  the  old  king- 
dom which  were  seeking  to  break  away.  When  the 
Germans  in  Nebraska  are  not  allowed  to  have  their 
own  schools  they  are  oppressed  to  a  greater  ex- 
tent  than,  in   many   cases,  the   Slovaks   and   the 

190 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

Rusins  and  the  Rumanians  were  oppressed  by  the 
Magyars. 

It  is  not  my  object  to  whitewash  Hungary  in  this 
brief  account,  or  to  convince  the  readers  of  this 
chapter  that  Hungary  is  innocent  of  everything. 
I  merely  aim  to  report  what  the  situation  was 
in  Hungary  in  March,  1920,  and  the  opinion  that 
had  been  formed  by  those  who  had  sifted  the 
evidence.  That  opinion,  as  I  have  said  before,  was 
almost  universally  in  favor  of  giving  back  to  the 
Magyars  a  large  part  of  the  territory  which  the 
Peace  Conference  originally  took  from  them.  An 
American  general,  after  studying  the  situation  care- 
fully, reported  that  in  his  opinion  the  Peace  Treaty 
should  be  revised  in  favor  of  Hungary.  I  found  no 
Americans  in  Hungary  who  did  not  hold  the  same 
opinion. 

From  the  London  Times  of  March  4,  1920,  comes 
the  following  news  item: 

The  Supreme  Council  yesterday  dealt  chiefly  with  the  question 
of  peace  with  Hungary.  Considerable  difference  of  opinion 
arose  between  the  various  delegates,  mainly  in  consequence  of 
an  Italian  suggestion  that  the  frontiers  assigned  by  the  general 
treaty  of  peace  to  Czechoslovakia,  Rumania,  and  Jugoslavia 
should  be  revised  in  favor  of  the  Magyars.  This  suggestion 
seemed  to  have  received  some  support  from  the  British  repre- 
sentatives, but  to  have  been  opposed  by  the  French,  who  do  not 
favor  the  idea  of  throwing  an  important  part  of  the  general 
Peace  Treaty  into  the  melting  pot. 

I  must  repeat  again  what  I  have  said  before  in  the 
chapters  on  Poland,  Austria,  and  Czechoslovakia. 
There  is  scarcely  an  American  in  Central  Europe  who 

191 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

does  not  regard  the  Peace  Conference  and  its  deci- 
sions as  a  gigantic  joke.  In  one  country  it  has  dis- 
regarded ethnographic  claims  and  stuck  to  geographic 
claims.  In  the  next  country  it  has  done  exactly 
the  opposite.  Though  the  Treaty  pretends  to  stand 
for  the  self-determination  of  peoples,  there  is  not  a 
country  in  which  self-determination  exists.  Austria 
is  not  permitted  to  determine  its  future.  The 
Germans  in  Bohemia  have  as  much  chance  of  self- 
determination  as  has  a  bucket  of  oats  in  front  of  a 
horse.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  Magyars  in 
Slovakia,  Ukrainians  in  Poland,  Poles  in  Bohemia, 
and  Magyars  in  Rumania.  These  are  only  a  few 
instances,  but  they  are  typical  of  the  work  which  the 
Peace  Conference  has  done  behind  the  pretty  scenery 
of  self-determination. 

There  are,  I  know,  many  people  in  the  United 
States  who  will  object  rabidly  to  any  such  defamation 
of  that  august  body.  If  these  people  will  hark  back 
six  or  seven  harks  they  will  recall  that  one  of  the 
most  austere  and  intense  American  supporters  of  the 
Peace  Conference  and  its  works  once  gave  an 
English  newspaper  an  enormous  amount  of  free 
advertising.  This  paper,  he  said,  was  the  only  one 
he  ever  read,  because  of  its  wonderful  grasp  of 
European  politics.     He  was  referring  to  the  Times. 

For  the  first  time  [says  an  editorial  in  the  London  Times  of 
March  4,  1920]  the  British  pubUc  have  now  seen  the  European 
Areopagus — the  Supreme  Council  of  the  Peace  Conference — 
at  work  under  their  eyes.  They  have  beheld  its  cowardice,  its 
vacillation,  its  meanness.  They  have  watched  it  as  it  jettisoned 
one  doctrine  after  another  as  the  fears  and  the  hopes  of  each 
triumvir  for  his  own  electorate  seemed  to  demand.    They  have 

192 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

observed  it  fumbling  and  groping  from  one  subject  to  another 
without  knowledge  to  illuminate  it  or  principle  to  guide  its 
steps.  That  has  been  a  very  wholesome  object  lesson  to  them. 
It  has  explained  to  them  the  character  of  much  that  was  done 
in  Paris.  They  tinderstand  now  how  the  whole  Treaty  was 
made,  and  they  know  why  it  was  made  so  ill. 

There  will  also  be  many  people  who  wish  to  take 
me  to  task  for  what  I  have  said  regarding  the  bun- 
combe which  has  been  written  concerning  Magyar 
oppression  of  the  difi'erent  nationalities  within  the 
borders  of  the  old  kingdom.  To  these  people  I 
would  like  to  quote  a  statement  made  by  Theodore 
Roosevelt  to  a  prominent  Hungarian  in  1904. 

*T  know  the  history  of  Hungary,"  said  Roosevelt, 
"and  I  cannot  but  admire  the  manner  in  which  the 
dominant  Magyar  nation  manages  so  many  dif- 
ferent nationalities  and  religions — manages  to  keep 
them  loyal  to  their  country,  as  they  have  been  for 
so  many  centuries.  We  have  the  same  problem  in 
America,  and  in  this  respect  we  have  much  to  learn 
from  Hungary." 

For  all  these  reasons  the  Magyars  lift  up  their 
voices  and  shout, 'W^w./  Nem!  Soha!"  {"Nol  No! 
Never!")  when  they  speak  of  the  dismemberment 
of  the  kingdom.  Hungary  is  covered  with  antidis- 
memberment  posters,  the  most  popular  one  being  the 
blood-red  relief  map  of  Hungary  as  it  was  before 
the  war,  with  great  cracks  running  across  it  along 
the  new  dismemberment  lines  of  the  Peace  Treaty, 
and  with  the  words  "Nem!  Nem!  Soha!"  splashed 
beneath  it. 

But  there  are  many  other  protesting  posters. 
A  new  one  is  issued  every  few  weeks,  and  all  the  shop 

193 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

windows  and  all  the  billboards  and  all  the  blank 
walls  display  it  until  a  new  one  appears.  One  shows 
a  relief  map  of  Hungary  with  a  hand  plunging  a 
cruel-looking  knife  into  it  and  carving  off  huge 
chunks.  "Can  we  endure  it?"  asks  the  Magyar 
word  beneath  the  map — intimating  that  the  Magyars 
are  practically  out  of  endurance.  Another  shows  a 
Magyar  peasant  in  his  national  costume,  clasping  a 
map  of  Hungary  to  his  breast  and  protecting  it 
against  the  attacks  of  birds  of  prey.  Still  another 
shows  huge  hands  grasping  at  different  sides  of 
Hungary.  "Thieves'  Hands,"  says  the  title  of  this 
poster.  Others  show  Magyar  warriors  in  full  armor 
defending  the  industry,  the  art,  and  the  religion  of 
the  western  world  from  the  Tartar  hordes  and  the 
Turkish  invasion.  The  Magyars  say  that  prior  to 
their  wars  against  the  onrushing  Turks  back  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  85  per  cent  of  the  population  of 
Hungary  was  pure  Magyar,  but  that  so  many  Mag- 
yars fell  before  the  Turks  that  at  the  close  of  the 
Turkish  wars  the  population  was  only  44  per  cent 
pure  Magyar.  This  terrible  loss  of  life  took  place 
in  only  a  few  decades,  and  because  of  it  Hungary 
claims  the  title  of  the  Ancient  Bulwark  of  Christen- 
dom. By  permitting  Hungary's  dismemberment, 
say  the  posters,  Christendom  will  be  making  a  very 
evil  return  for  the  debt  which  it  owes  to  Hungary. 
"He  who  would  dismember  Hungary,"  reads  one 
poster,  "is  paving  the  way  for  a  fresh  war."  "Do 
you  want  four  Alsace-Lorraines  ? "  demands  another, 
which  represents  the  four  dismembered  sections 
bursting  into  flames.  "Presburg,  the  Magyar  Stras- 
burg,"  reads  still  another,  referring  to  the  ancient 

194 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

Magyar  city  on  the  Danube  which  the  Czechs  have 
occupied. 

The  mental  picture  which  the  average  American 
has  formed  of  the  Magyar,  or  Hungarian,  I  beheve, 
is  a  somewhat  erroneous  one.  The  popular  impres- 
sion of  him,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  is  that  he  is  one 
of  the  hardest  of  hard-boiled  eggs — a  low  person 
with  a  baroque  mustache  who  gets  into  violent 
fights  on  Sundays.  In  reality  the  true  Hungarian 
is  one  of  the  most  amiable,  hospitable,  and  attractive 
persons  that  one  can  find  in  Central  Europe.  On  this 
fact  the  surrounding  nationalities  base  some  of  their 
loudest  shrieks.  "Everyone  who  goes  to  Hungary," 
they  claim,  "falls  into  the  clutches  of  the  Magyar 
aristocrats  and  is  hoodwinked  by  their  fine  manners 
and  their  fluent  lies  and  their  generous  hospitality ! ' ' 

It  is  a  fact  that  practically  every  American  or 
Englishman  who  goes  to  Hungary  is  more  favorably 
inclined  toward  the  claims  of  the  Magyars  than 
toward  those  of  most  of  the  surrounding  nationalities. 
To  say,  however,  that  all  of  them  are  hoodwinked 
is  to  make  a  statement  which  cannot  possibly  be 
true.  There  must  be  quite  a  number  of  Englishmen 
and  Americans  who  are  still  capable  of  nailing  lies, 
seeing  through  fine  manners  and  resisting  the  de- 
bilitating influences  of  hospitality,  whether  these 
parlor  tricks  originate  with  Magyars,  Celts,  Slavs, 
or  Germans.  Roosevelt  liked  the  Magyars,  and  it 
is  highly  probable  that  the  amount  of  hoodwinking 
that  was  successfully  foisted  off  on  him  would  have 
discouraged  the  most  hardened  foister. 

However,  the  true  Magyar  is  either  an  aristocrat 
or  a  lover  of  the  pomp  and  gauds  of  aristocracy. 

195 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

The  newcomer  writhes  internally  when  he  hears 
for  the  first  time  the  form  of  farewell  that  is  used 
so  frequently  by  Magyar  underlings  and  shop- 
keepers— ''Ich  kiisse  die  Hdnde,''  or,  "I  kiss  the 
hands."  The  Viennese,  too,  have  that  odd  form  of 
expression.  One  walks  out  of  a  restaurant  or  a 
theater  or  a  store  amid  an  echoing  volley  of  "I 
kiss  the  hands!"  It's  enough,  as  the  less  cultured 
American  is  sometimes  heard  to  remark,  to  get  your 
goat.  But  the  Magyar  likes  it.  He  is  a  monarchist 
by  nature.  He  wants  a  king.  He  is  a  superiorist; 
he  feels  that  he  is  far  better  than  any  of  the  sur- 
rounding nationalities;  and  when  asked  about  it  he 
freely  admits  it.  In  the  perpetual  wrangle  about 
culture  which  is  constantly  going  on  in  Central 
Europe,  the  voice  of  the  Magyar  rings  out  loud  and 
clear  above  all  the  others — not  necessarily  because 
his  culture  is  so  much  better  than  all  the  others,  but 
because  he  feels  confident  that  there's  nobody  with 
a  culture  which  has  his,  so  to  speak,  shaded. 

When  a  Central  European  gets  his  legs  under  a 
table  and  starts  to  discourse  on  his  culture  he  can 
run  on  for  hoiu-s  at  a  time  unless  he  is  forcibly  shut 
off.  He  argues  either  that  the  other  nations  have 
no  culture  or  that  the  other  nations  stole  their  cul- 
ture from  his  own.  The  Czechs,  for  example,  snort 
loudly  at  Magyar  culture,  saying  that  the  Magyars 
stole  what  little  they  have  from  the  Slovaks.  This 
makes  the  Magyars  almost  wild  with  rage,  and  they 
howl  frantically  that  the  Czechs  are  rude  and 
cultureless,  and  that  the  Magyar  culture  is  worth 
eighteen  or  twenty  cultures  like  that  of  the  Czechs. 
They  speak  of  their  cultures  in  much  the  same  way 

196 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

as  chiefs  of  laboratories  discuss  diphtheria  cultures. 
They  mention  them  as  though  they  could  be  injected 
into  the  forearm  with  a  hypodermic  needle.  To  an 
outsider  who  is  getting  his  eightieth  or  ninetieth 
cultural  earful  in  the  course  of  about  two  weeks, 
most  of  the  Central  European  culture  conversation 
sounds  about  the  same  way  as  a  cultural  squabble 
between  the  cities  of  Terre  Haute,  Kansas  City, 
El  Paso,  and  Elmira  would  sound. 

The  Magyar,  however,  believes  and  has  good  rea- 
son for  believing  that  he  is  more  advanced  in  his 
civilization  than  are  the  Slovaks,  the  Rumanians, 
and .  all  the  other  peoples  who  have  been  under 
Magyar  rule  for  so  many  centuries.  And  the  Magyar 
has  been  a  fighting  man  for  centiuries.  He  is  a  born 
warrior.  He  has  been  accustomed  to  fight  for  what 
is  his.  Being  a  superiorist,  he  believes  that  it  is 
genuinely  better  for  the  nationalities  of  the  old 
Hungary  to  be  under  his  rule  than  to  be  under  their 
own  rule.  He  sincerely  believes  that  every  part 
of  the  old  kingdom  belongs  to  him  as  much  as 
Budapest  belongs  to  him.  Having  been  accustomed 
in  the  past  to  fight  for  what  is  his,  he  intends  to  keep 
right  on  fighting  for  what  he  considers  his.  Sooner 
or  later  he  will  fight  for  all  the  parts  of  the  old 
kingdom  that  have  been  taken  from  him — just  as 
we  would  fight  eventually  to  get  back  South  Dakota 
if  the  Grabbonians  took  it  away  from  us.  Germany 
has  no  argument  to  put  up  over  the  loss  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  and  German  Poland ;  Austria  has  no  ground 
for  protest  over  the  loss  of  Bohemia ;  but  Hungary  has 
a  large  amount  of  ground  on  which  to  protest  loudly 
and  persistently  against  the  loss  of  her  integral  parts, 

197 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

For  this  reason  the  Magyar  wails  of  "Nem!  Nemf 
Soha!''  cannot  be  sniffed  at  by  any  person  who 
hopes  to  see  the  peace  of  Europe  in  a  position  where 
it  is  not  likely  to  be  smashed  into  a  million  fragments 
by  a  week  from  almost  any  Friday  in  the  future. 

For  the  past  six  years  the  Magyars  have  had  as 
much  unwelcome  excitement  as  any  nation  has  ever 
had  in  that  period  of  time.  According  to  the  Mag- 
yars, they  were  forced  into  the  war  by  Austria  against 
their  wills.  Hungary,  they  claim,  had  nothing  to 
gain  and  everything  to  lose.  They  also  claim  that 
they  have  always  had  rather  more  than  less  sym- 
pathy for  the  Serbs — against  whom  the  opening  guns 
in  the  Great  War  were  fired  by  Austria-Hungary 
— and  that  their  admiration  for  England  and  America 
has  always  been  very  great.  All  the  Magyars, 
moreover,  say  that  they  detest  Austria  and  have 
always  detested  her.  Austria,  they  say,  has  always 
made  cat's-paws  out  of  them — ^has  always  treated 
them  like  yokels.  It  is  a  fact  that  Hungarian  society 
would  never  receive  the  Austrian  and  the  Czech 
army  officers  before  the  war.  The  Magyars  also 
claim  that  they  have  no  use  for  Germany  and  never 
have  had — that  they  were  forced  into  an  alliance 
with  Germany  in  sheer  self-defense.  Such  state- 
ments, must,  of  course,  be  taken  with  a  grain  of  salt. 

At  any  rate,  the  Magyars  had  nearly  four  and  a 
half  years  of  war.  At  the  end  of  the  war  there  was 
a  revolution,  and  the  Social  Democrats  took  over 
the  government.  As  in  all  the  Social  Democratic 
parties  which  now  control  Central  Europe,  those 
members  of  the  party  who  were  extremists — or 
who  belonged  to  the  Extreme  Left,  as  the  technical 

198 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

phrase  runs — were  plain  Bolsheviks.  In  all  of 
Central  Europe  the  extremists  of  every  Social 
Democratic  party — which  means  the  political  party 
that  is  giving  Europe  to  the  dogs  and  frightening  the 
business  men  to  such  an  extent  that  they  scarcely 
dare  to  open  their  factories  or  to  speed  up  their 
industries — have  the  same  bitter  hatred  of  the 
bourgeoisie  and  of  capital  that  the  Bolsheviks  have. 
In  Vienna  I  went  to  Dr.  Otto  Bauer,  former  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  Dr.  Friedrich  Adler,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  National  Assembly,  for  certain  statements 
regarding  the  Social  Democrats.  These  men  are 
leaders  of  Social  Democracy — the  ruling  class — in 
Austria.  Both  men  said  that  they  absolutely  re- 
fused to  make  any  statements  to  the  American  press, 
because  it  was  universally  bourgeois  and  capitalistic. 
The  backbone  of  all  Social  Democracy  is  class 
warfare. 

The  Social  Democratic  government  of  Hungary, 
headed  by  Count  Karolyi,  was  weak.  The  army, 
following  the  armistice,  melted  into  thin  air.  Karol- 
yi's  War  Minister,  who  apparently  was  chosen  by 
Karolyi  for  reasons  similar  to  those  which  seem  to 
have  actuated  the  choice  of  some  of  our  own  Cabinet 
Ministers,  declared  that  he  didn't  care  if  he  never 
saw  another  soldier  as  long  as  he  lived.  When  the 
murmurs  of  the  people  grew  to  a  thunderous  roar 
Karolyi  ran  away  to  Czechoslovakia.  Because  he 
let  the  army  go  Karolyi  is  almost  universally  blamed 
by  the  Magyars  to-day  for  their  plight.  He  seems 
to  have  thought  that  the  Allies  would  not  allow  an 
unarmed  nation  to  be  attacked.  If  this  was  the 
case  his  thinker  was  suffering  from  sand  in  the  gear 

199 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

box.  And  he  ran  away  under  fire.  This  being  the 
case,  the  Magyars  are  entitled  to  think  as  they 
please  about  him,  even  though  some  outsiders 
claim,  as  they  do,  that  Karolyi  was  an  idealist  and 
a  great  man. 

When  Karolyi  ran  away  there  was  a  grand  upset; 
and  late  in  March,  191 9,  the  Bolsheviks  seized  the 
government.  The  Bolshevik  leaders  were  men  of 
the  lowest,  vilest,  and  most  brutal  type.  They  were 
ignorant  and  avaricious.  Their  leader  was  Bela 
Kun,  or  Kohn,  and  his  chief  assistants  were  the  two 
Szamuely  brothers — who  are  always  spoken  of  by 
the  Magyars  as  "the  terrible  Szamuely  brothers." 
The  Szamuely  brothers  are  dead  now.  One,  trying 
to  flee  from  Hungary  with  millions  of  crowns  in  loot, 
committed  suicide  when  he  saw  that  his  capture 
was  certain.  Another  was  executed.  Bela  Kun  is 
imprisoned  near  Vienna.  The  Magyars  are  trying 
to  extradite  him  so  that  they  can  try  him  for  his 
crimes. 

Under  Kun,  the  Szamuelys,  and  the  most  ignorant 
and  avaricious  gang  of  thugs  that  ever  held  govern- 
ment positions  outside  of  Bolshevik  Russia,  the 
Hungarian  Bolsheviks  inaugurated  the  red  terror  in 
Budapest.  They  murdered  large  numbers  of  the 
Magyar  bourgeoisie.  They  did  some  very  awful 
things.  Under  their  rule  the  dregs  of  the  slums 
rose  up  and  scattered  filth  in  the  homes  of  the  hated 
bourgeoisie.  No  member  of  the  bourgeoisie  was 
permitted  to  remain  in  full  possession  of  his  own 
home.  In  every  home  was  put  the  outpouring  of 
the  slums — laughing  and  gloating  over  their  hated 
enemies,   the  capitalists.     The  Bolsheviks  printed 

200 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

money  in  a  hurry — in  so  much  of  a  hurry  that  they 
printed  the  notes  on  only  one  side  of  the  paper. 
In  every  house  they  named  one  of  their  number  to 
be  a  man  of  confidence,  and  to  this  man  of  con- 
fidence every  person  in  the  house  had  to  come  in 
order  to  obtain  permission  to  have  a  pair  of  boots 
repaired,  to  buy  a  shirt,  to  get  a  piece  of  meat  to  eat. 
If  the  man  of  confidence  approved,  it  was  all  right; 
if  he  disapproved,  it  was  all  wrong. 

Stores  were  closed ;  windows  were  smashed ;  build- 
ings were  looted  right  and  left.  Persons  possessing 
bank  accounts  could  draw  out  only  200  crowns  a 
month — and  the  crown  was  worth  very  little  at  that 
time.  Later  this  law  was  altered  so  that  a  man 
could  draw  out  as  much  as  2,000  crowns  a  month, 
but  no  more.  There  was  only  one  newspaper — the 
red  newspaper,  and  that  printed  nothing  but  Bol- 
shevik news.  The  whole  world  was  represented  as 
going  Bolshevik — especially  America;  and  copies 
of  the  Socialist  paper,  the  New  York  Call,  bearing 
across  the  top  of  the  front  page  the  slogan,  "Prole- 
tarians of  the  World,  Unite,"  were  distributed  in 
Budapest  to  show  that  Bolshevism  was  strongly 
intrenched  in  the  United  States.  The  bourgeoisie 
were  thrown  into  prison.  Daily  lists  were  issued  of 
the  people  who  were  to  be  shot  because  of  anti- 
Bolshevik  sympathies.  A  red  army  was  formed,  and 
many  workmen  were  forced  into  it  against  their  wills. 
That  is  to  say,  some  of  them  were  forced  in.  Many 
other  non-Bolsheviks  went  in  of  their  own  accord. 

A  great  many  non-Bolsheviks  shouted  for  Bolshe- 
vism in  Hungary  during  the  Bolshevik  regime, 
because  the  Magyars  are  great  opportunists. 

201 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

A  part  of  the  red  army  was  sent  down  against  the 
Rumanians,  and  a  part  was  sent  up  against  the 
Czechs,  for  when  the_  Rumanians  and  the  Czechs 
had  seen  Hungary  lying  helpless  before  them  with- 
out an  army  or  any  other  means  of  protection  they 
had  promptly  waded  in  and  helped  themselves  to 
whatever  they  wanted — and  their  wants  were  not 
at  all  modest.  The  section  of  the  red  army  which 
went  against  the  Rumanians  got  into  action  first, 
and  promptly  went  to  pieces.  The  Rumanians, 
fairly  climbing  up  the  backs  of  the  fleeing  Bolsheviks, 
came  all  the  way  across  Hungary  and  into  Budapest. 
That  was  early  in  August,  19 19,  and  on  that  day 
Bolshevik  rule  in  Hungary  became  a  thing  of  the 
past. 

Terrible  as  was  the  Bolshevik  rule  and  the  red 
terror  in  Hungary,  it  had  one  beneficial  effect: 
Hungary,  having  had  a  good  dose  of  Bolshevism, 
is  permanently  cured.  It  is  the  one  country  in 
Central  Europe  where  there  is  no  more  fear  of 
Bolshevism.  "We  know  what  it  is  now,"  say  the 
Magyars,  "and  it  can  never  happen  again.  Any- 
thing is  preferable  to  it.  It  can  never  get  started 
in  the  future." 

From  August  until  November,  1919,  the  Ru- 
manians occupied  the  Hungarian  capital.  Not  car- 
ing to  wait  for  reparations  committees  to  decide 
what  indemnities  Rumania  should  receive  from  the 
Central  Empires,  the  Rumanians  decided  to  be  their 
own  reparations  committee  and  take  what  they 
wanted  from  Hungary  while  it  was  lying  helpless  on 
its  back.  So  they  went  through  Hungary  with  a 
fine-tooth  comb.     They   took  locomotives,   freight 

202 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

cars,  and  passenger  cars.  They  took  astronomical 
instruments,  microscopes,  and  scientific  instruments. 
They  took  farm  tractors  and  harvesting  machinery. 
They  took  hoes  and  rakes  and  shovels  and  every 
other  farming  tool  that  they  could  find.  They  took 
com  and  wheat  and  potatoes  and  all  the  other  food- 
stuffs that  the  farmers  didn't  conceal.  They  even 
took  from  the  farmers  the  seed  wheat  that  had  been 
tested  and  selected  after  years  of  experimenting,  and 
shipped  it  back  to  Rumania  to  be  ground  up  into 
flour.  They  gathered  up  all  the  horses  and  cows  and 
sheep  that  they  could  find  and  shipped  them  back 
to  Rumania.  As  a  result  the  Magyar  farmers  lack 
farm  implements,  animals  to  cultivate  their  fields, 
and  seed  with  which  to  plant  them.  There  is  a  grave 
possibility  that  instead  of  being  self-supporting  in 
the  autumn  of  1920,  as  the  Magyars  had  expected 
to  be,  another  year  may  have  to  elapse,  thanks  to  the 
Rumanians,  before  they  can  produce  enough  to  feed 
themselves  properly. 

After  Bela  Kun  and  his  infamous  crew  had  been 
driven  from  power,  one  government  followed  another 
with  bewildering  rapidity.  Hungary-  has  always 
been  cursed  with  poHticians,  and  the  post-Bolshevik 
politicians  were  representative  curses — selfish  fortune 
hunters,  for  the  most  part.  The  governments  had 
no  semblance  of  strength  and  no  power  to  keep  order, 
and  under  them  the  young  Magyars  ran  amuck, 
took  the  law  into  their  own  hands,  and  killed  a  large 
number  of  the  Bolsheviks  who  had  made  life  so 
horrible  for  the  Magyars.  This  sort  of  lynch  law 
is  only  too  common  in  the  United  States;  so  if 
Americans  will  consider  what  the  Magyars  endured 
14  203 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

from  the  Bolsheviks,  they  should  have  no  difficulty 
in  understanding  how  it  was  possible  for  the  young 
Magyars  to  run  amuck. 

There  were  even  posters  in  parts  of  Budapest 
reminding  the  citizens  of  the,  outrages  which  they 
had  suffered,  and  suggesting  by  implication,  though 
not  in  words,  that  the  same  treatment  be  accorded 
to  the  people  who  had  been  responsible  for  their 
suffering. 

During  the  Bolshevik  regime  a  Magyar  admiral 
named  Horthy  decided  that  the  time  was  ripe  for 
action  and  plenty  of  it.  Horthy  had  served  in  the 
Adriatic  with  distinction  during  the  war,  and  had 
received  so  many  decorations  that  when  he  put  on 
all  of  them  his  left  shoulder  was  five  inches  lower 
than  his  right.  He  was  a  popular  man  and  a 
fighter.  Moreover,  he  came  of  a  fighting  race; 
for  five  members  of  the  Horthy  family  died  in  the 
great  battle  of  Mohacs  in  1526,  when  the  Magyars 
finally  went  down  to  defeat  before  the  Turks.  And 
he  had  a  fighting  name — Miklos,  which  is  pure 
Magyar  for  Mike. 

Horthy  went  down  to  Szegedin,  in  southern  Hun- 
gary, with  a  handful  of  other  fighters,  and  sent  out 
a  call  for  volunteers.  Officers  and  men  flocked  to 
him,  coming  in  the  most  devious  ways  to  escape  the 
Bolsheviks.  The  Italians  helped  him  and  supplied 
his  men  with  part  of  the  arms  which  they  needed. 
Horthy's  men  are  well-trained,  soldierly-looking 
troops.  The  Magyars  themselves  say  that  there  are 
30,000  men  in  Horthy's  army.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
there  is  nearly  double  that  number,  at  least. 

When  the  Rumanians  moved  out  of  Budapest, 
204 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

Horthy  moved  in.  He  demanded  order  at  once, 
and  got  it.  He  had  no  use  for  self-seeking,  agitating 
politicians,  or  for  strong-arm  methods,  and  he  said  so 
frankly.  Just  after  I  arrived  in  Budapest,  late  last 
February,  Horthy  was  made  military  dictator  of 
Hungary,  with  the  title  of  chief  of  state,  or  regent — 
the  ruler  until  a  king  is  crowned.  Horthy  started 
right  out  to  do  the  dictating,  too.  The  politicians 
framed  up  a  set  of  rules  for  him  to  work  under,  so 
that  they  could  go  ahead  picking  up  all  the  loose 
moneys  that  weren't  pasted  to  the  floor.  Horthy 's 
only  powers  were  to  be  the  right  to  kiss  his  hand  to 
the  people  on  Wednesday  and  Saturday  afternoons, 
attach  his  name  to  statements  issued  to  the  press, 
and  ride  in  front  of  the  band  on  a  milk-white  charger. 
The  politicians  came  to  Horthy  one  February  morn- 
ing and  said,  graciously,  "You're  elected  regent; 
kindly  step  out  on  the  balcony  and  address  the 
populace."  The  populace,  having  been  tipped  off, 
was  in  front  of  the  building,  shouting  itself  hoarse, 
and  the  politicians  figured  that  Horthy  would  not 
dare  to  refuse  the  popular  demand. 

Horthy,  however,  knew  exactly  what  he  wanted, 
and  he  didn't  care  how  long  he  kept  the  populace 
standing  in  front  of  his  residence.  He  demanded 
the  right  of  sending  parliament  home  when  it  got 
too  windy,  of  making  war  without  publishing  his 
intentions  several  weeks  ahead  of  time  to  the  people 
whom  he  planned  to  hit,  and  of  having  several  other 
highly  dictatorial  privileges — and  of  having  them 
right  away. 

"After  you  have  made  these  little  changes,"  said 
Admiral  Horthy  to  the  waiting  politicians  with  a 

205 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

benevolent  smile,  "the  program  will  proceed.  Until 
then  the  eager  populace  will  not  be  addressed." 

His  demands  were  acceded  to  with  some  reluctance, 
whereupon  he  gratefully  accepted  the  dictatorship, 
while  the  professional  politicians  started  hunting  for 
a  soft  place  on  which,  as  one  might  say,  to  get  off. 

Before  I  left  Vienna  for  Budapest  several  people 
had  occasion  to  ask  me  where  I  was  going.  When 
I  mentioned  Budapest  they  shook  their  heads  know- 
ingly. "You'll  see  a  city  of  madmen,"  they  said. 
"They're  all  crazy  down  there!  The  city  is  covered 
with  posters  demanding  pogroms.  The  white  ter- 
ror which  exists  is  worse  than  the  red  terror  at  its 
height." 

I  floated  down  the  Danube  to  Budapest  with  both 
eyes  wide  open  for  madmen  rushing  along  the  banks 
with  knives  in  their  hands.  I  saw  nothing  but  the 
swollen  brown  waters  of  the  Danube,  the  flat,  monot- 
onous and  wonderfully  rich  Hungarian  farm  lands 
and  millions  of  wild  mallard  ducks.  The  Danube 
has  worked  up  considerable  of  a  reputation  for  beauty 
and  blueness,  on  account  of  Mr.  Strauss's  celebrated 
waltz.  It  is,  however,  not  particularly  beautiful 
and  not  at  all  blue  between  Vienna  and  Budapest. 
Instead  of  "The  Beautiful  Blue  Danube,"  Mr. 
Strauss  should  have  written  a  jazz  melody  entitled, 
"Down  on  the  Danube  There  Are  Dandy  Ducks," 
or  something  like  that,  if  he  wanted  to  be  strictly 
up  to  date  and  truthful.  As  the  little  steamer 
churned  downstream  she  was  constantly  surrounded 
by  flocks  of  ducks  which  got  out  of  the  river  ahead 
of  her  and  circled  round  behind  her  to  settle  again 
and  resume  their  feeding;    blue-winged  teal,  geese, 

206 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

black  swans,  widgeon,  and  mallards,  but  mostly 
mallards.  There  were  mallards  in  twos  and  tens 
and  hundreds  and  thousands.  They  passed  the 
steamer  in  never-ending  flocks.  The  Danube  has 
from  three  to  eight  channels,  and  innumerable  back- 
waters and  bayous  all  along  the  flat  Danube  basin, 
and  the  steamer  was  only  kicking  the  ducks  out  of 
the  main  channel.  I  strongly  recommend  the  Dan- 
ube as  a  duck  hunters'  paradise. 

Though  there  were  no  madmen  rushing  along  the 
banks  of  the  Danube,  there  were  a  number  of  men 
on  the  steamer  who  became  so  extremely  upset  that 
they  might  have  been  called  mad  by  a  purist. 
There  were  five  hundred  passengers  on  that  steamer, 
and  there  were  cabins  for  only  thirty-eight  of  them. 
It  is  only  a  one-day  trip  from  Vienna  to  Budapest, 
but,  owing  to  the  aversion  of  the  steamboat  officials 
to  overwork  themselves,  the  boats  didn't  run  after 
nightfall.  Consequently  the  steamer  tied  up  a  few 
miles  out  of  Budapest,  and  the  four  hundred  and 
sixty-two  people  who  didn't  have  cabins  had  to  lie 
down  on  the  floor  with  their  baggage  and  try  to 
sleep.  During  the  night  some  evilly  disposed  per- 
sons percolated  among  the  slumberers  and  stole  a 
large  percentage  of  the  baggage.  To  cap  the  climax, 
the  purser  went  ashore  during  the  night  with  most 
of  the  passage  money  in  his  pocket,  met  some  low 
characters,  and  was  relieved  of  30,000  crowns.  Con- 
sequently all  the  passengers  had  to  be  searched  the 
next  morning — all,  that  is,  except  one  or  two  Amer- 
icans who  didn't  exactly  fancy  the  idea  of  being 
searched  and  were  willing  to  fight  for  their  fancies. 
As  a  result  of  losing  their  baggage  and  being  searched, 

207 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

there  were  a  great  many  persons  on  the  boat  who 
might  have  been  classed  as  madmen  without  any 
undue  stretch  of  the  imagination. 

The  question  of  the  white  terror  in  Hungary  is  a 
delicate  one  to  handle,  because  a  great  many  of  the 
people  who  have  the  most  heated  views  on  the  sub- 
ject are  the  ones  who  haven't  been  in  Hungary  and 
consequently  don't  know  what  they  are  talking 
about.  They  are  prone  to  think  that  people  who 
base  their  judgment  on  personal  observation  are 
either  mistaken  or  have  been  misled  or  are  deliber- 
ately falsifying.  Quite  briefly,  the  white  terror  is 
supposed  to  be  the  terrorization  and  murder  of 
Hebrews  in  Budapest  because  of  the  part  that 
Hebrews  played  in  Bolshevik  rule.  The  claim  is 
made  that  this  white  terror  has  the  official  sanction 
of  the  Horthy  government.  It  is  claimed  that  more 
people  are  being  killed  under  the  white  terror  than 
during  the  red  terror.  It  is  claimed  that  the  city 
of  Budapest  is  plastered  with  posters  inciting  the 
people  to  kill  Hebrews. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  there  are  no  anti-Hebrew 
posters  or  anti-Bolshevik  posters  or  pro-pogrom 
posters  exposed  anywhere  in  the  city  of  Budapest. 
I  hunted  for  them  very  carefully,  unwilling  to  take 
the  assurance  of  Americans  and  Magyars  alike  that 
such  things  did  not  exist.  I  questioned  a  large 
number  of  people,  ranging  from  college  professors 
down  to  hotel  porters,  concerning  such  posters.  A 
large  percentage  of  the  people  I  asked  had  never 
seen  anything  of  the  sort  and  were  of  the  opinion 
that  there  hadn't  been  any  such  things.  From 
others,  however,  I  learned  that  anti-Bolshevik  post- 
208 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

ers  had  been  posted  up  in  the  city  for  a  short  time 
after  the  Bolshevik  overthrow,  and  that  these  post- 
ers, by  picturing  the  sufferings  of  the  Magyars  under 
Bolshevism,  had  tacitly  encouraged  retaliation.  At 
the  end  of  a  short  time,  however,  they  had  been 
taken  down.  After  considerable  effort  I  secured  a 
copy  of  the  poster  admitted  by  all  to  have  been  the 
most  virulent  of  the  Magyar  anti-Bolshevik  propa- 
ganda. This  poster  is  now  in  the  possession  of  the 
publishers.  It  is  no  more  rabid  than  many  of  the 
anti-German  cartoons  which  appeared  in  America 
during  the  war. 

As  to  the  number  of  people  who  have  been  killed 
by  anti-Bolshevik  persecution  since  the  Horthy 
forces  entered  Budapest  and  a  sound  government 
was  started,  the  claims  have  varied  between  200 
and  2,000,  with  the  average  claimant  leaning 
toward  2,000.  The  Socialists  have  been  the  ones 
who  have  made  the  most  horrifying  claims.  Con- 
sequently the  Socialist  leaders  were  the  ones  to 
approach  in  order  to  obtain  definite  charges.  This 
was  done,  and  the  Socialists  furnished  a  list  of  the 
people  who  had  vanished  during  the  first  two  and 
one  half  months  of  the  Horthy  rule.  This  list, 
furnished  by  the  injured  party  itself,  contained  not 
2,000  names  nor  200  names,  but  26  names.  These 
26  persons  had  disappeared.  It  was  implied  that 
they  had  been  murdered,  but  it  was  not  so  stated. 
Investigation  showed  that,  of  the  26,  several  were  in 
Vienna,  where  they  had  fled  when  they  learned  of  the 
violence  of  the  anti-Bolshevik  feeling  in  Budapest. 
Several  others  were  located  in  Czechoslovakia, 
where  they  had  fled  for  the  same  reason.     This  list 

209 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

is  in  the  possession  of  Mr.  Grant-Smith,  American 
commissioner  to  Hungary. 

There  is  a  white  terror  in  Hungary,  but  it  is  a  good 
deal  Hke  the  white  terror  that  obtains  in  the  United 
States  among  the  reds.  We  have  good  reason  to 
want  to  rid  America  of  reds.  We  have  made  the 
fact  very  plain,  and  American  Bolsheviks  of  both 
the  gutter  and  the  parlor  variety  are  watching  their 
steps  with  unusual  care.  The  Magyars  have  far  bet- 
ter reason  to  loathe  Bolshevism  and  the  Bolsheviks 
than  America  has  yet  been  given,  and  the  Bolsheviks 
know  it.  They  are  adhering  rigidly  to  the  straight 
and  narrow  path.  That  is  the  white  terror.  Those 
who  can  are  fleeing  to  other  countries.  A  few  have 
been  killed.  But  the  story  that  no  Hebrew  dares  to 
show  his  face  in  Budapest  is  pure  piffle.  As  has 
been  the  case  for  many  years,  practically  all  the 
Hungarian  banks,  newspapers,  politicians,  nobles, 
and  large  farms  are  controlled  by  Hebrews  who  are 
as  enthusiastic  Magyars  as  any  Magyar  in  Hungary, 
yet  all  businesses  are  running  as  usual  in  Budapest. 

I  went  to  Admiral  Horthy  himself  for  information 
concerning  the  white  terror,  for  it  is  said  among  out- 
siders that  the  white  terror  is  carried  on  by  officers 
of  Horthy's  army. 

"I  am  trying  to  maintain  order  in  Hungary," 
said  he,  "and  my  officers  and  men  know  it.  I  have 
told  them — and  they  understand  perfectly — that  if 
any  murders  take  place  while  I  am  in  power  I  will  be 
seriously  damaged.  I  know,  if  I  may  be  pardoned 
for  saying  so,  my  officers'  sentiments  for  me;  and 
I  know  there  is  not  one  of  them  who  would  not 
suffer  greatly  rather  than  cause  me  any  enibarrasg- 

2IQ 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

ment.  Whoever  the  men  may  be  that  are  respon- 
sible for  the  few  murders  that  have  taken  place, 
they  have  made  every  attempt  to  throw  the  blame 
on  the  Horthy  army,  but  they  have  done  it  in  an 
incredibly  clumsy  and  stupid  manner.  For  ex- 
ample, there  was  recently  a  most  unfortunate  and 
terrible  affair:  a  newspaper  editor  was  seized  and 
carried  to  the  country  and  murdered.  His  mur- 
derers traveled  in  a  military  automobile,  and  after 
the  crime  had  been  committed  one  of  the  men 
stood  up  in  the  automobile  so  that  he  could  be  seen 
by  passers-by.  He  was  dressed  in  a  uniform,  and 
in  a  loud  voice  he  stated  that  he  was  an  officer,  and 
asked  to  be  directed  to  the  barracks.  Such  actions 
are  ridiculous,  for  no  murderer  would  brand  himself 
so  unmistakably.  It  was  a  clear  attempt  to  throw 
the  blame  on  my  officers." 

I  asked  Admiral  Horthy  whether  his  government 
wished  to  discriminate  in  any  way  against  Hebrews, 
as  reports  say  that  it  does. 

"In  no  respect  whatever,"  said  Admiral  Horthy. 
"The  Hebrews  control  business  and  banking  and 
journalism  in  Hungary  because  the  Magyar  aristo- 
crats, in  many  instances,  have  been  lazy  and  prone 
to  regard  work  as  beneath  their  dignity.  Con- 
sequently we  cannot  exist  without  the  Hebrews. 
The  only  antagonistic  feeling  among  the  Magyars  is 
against  the  immigrants  who  have  come  in  from 
Galicia  during  the  war — the  parasites  who  feed  on 
one  another  and  on  everyone  with  whom  they  come 
in  contact,  and  who  have  profiteered  in  food,  so  that 
they  have  grown  wealthy  while  the  price  of  the  food 
has  soared  above  the  reach  of  our  own  people." 

2H 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

As  regards  her  money,  Hungary  is  in  practically 
the  same  position  as  that  in  which  Austria  finds  her- 
self. The  reason  for  this  is  difficult  to  understand, 
for  whereas  Austria  is  stripped  of  factories,  coal, 
farm  lands,  food,  and  everything  that  is  necessary 
for  a  state's  existence,  Hungary  still  has  almost 
everything  that  she  needs  in  order  to  be  self-support- 
ing— or  will  have  almost  everything  as  soon  as  she 
has  recovered  from  the  war,  Bolshevism,  and  the 
Rumanian  invasion.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  Ru- 
manians she  would  have  produced  more  than  enough 
food  for  her  own  needs  by  the  autumn  of  1920. 
Her  claims  that  she  cannot  exist  without  the  terri- 
tory which  the  Peace  Conference  has  taken  from  her 
are  untrue.  It  would  be  hard  lines — and  unfair  lines 
— if  she  had  to  get  along  without  this  territory,  but 
she  could  easily  do  it.  And  yet  her  money  is  as  low 
as  Austria's — or  was  as  low  as  Austria's  early  in 
March,  1920.  Why  should  it  be  so?  I  do  not 
know,  and  I  was  unable  to  find  out,  though  I  asked 
everybody  I  met,  from  Admiral  Horthy  down  to  the 
hat  boy  in  the  Hungaria  Hotel,  not  omitting  several 
of  Budapest's  prominent  bankers. 

Some  of  it  is  due  to  the  fluency  with  which  the 
money  is  rolling  off  the  printing  presses ;  but  Austria 
should  unquestionably  have  the  most  worthless 
money  in  the  world.  She  should  lead  her  nearest 
competitors  by  several  miles.  How  it  is  that  Hun- 
gary can  run  neck  and  neck  with  her  is  a  mystery. 
It  is  as  much  of  a  mystery  as  the  reason  why  the 
Magyars  always  write  their  names  hind  side  to, 
or  front  side  back,  so  to  speak.  A  Hungarian  who 
signs  himself  Kiralfy  Bela  is  really  Bela  Kiralfy.     An 

212 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

American  who  signs  his  name  Harry  J.  Wimpus  is 
at  once  known  to  all  Hungarians  as  Mr.  Harry,  and 
any  telegrams  which  are  received  for  Mr.  Wimpus 
are  put  in  the  unclaimed  rack,  because  Mr.  Wimpus 
has  become  Mr.  Harry  and  is  unrecognized  by  any 
other  name.  Thus,  Bela  Kun  is  always  referred  to 
by  the  Magyars  as  Kun  Bela,  and  if  Mr.  Irvin  Cobb 
should  go  to  Budapest  to  live  he  would  have  to  call 
himself  Cobb  Irvin  or  be  classed  down  in  the  ruck 
with  the  unknown  Jones  John  and  Smith  Samuel 
and  Brown  Charles.  What  pleasure  the  Magyars 
get  out  of  fooling  themselves  into  thinking  that 
"Macbeth"  was  written  by  Shakespeare  William,  and 
that  the  character  Schofield  Penrod  was  created  by 
Tarkington  Booth  is  quite  beyond  the  comprehension 
of  the  average  comprehender.  It  might  add  to  the 
beauty  of  the  well-known  ballad  "Old  Black  Joe" 
if  it  were  Magyarized  into  "Old  Joe  Black,"  but  I 
doubt  it. 

Nobody  knows  why  these  things  are  so,  but  they 
are  so.  Early  in  March  the  person  who  was  for- 
tunate enough  to  have  American  dollars  could 
change  them  into  Hungarian  crowns  at  the  rate  of 
250  crowns  for  each  dollar.  Since  one  dollar  could 
be  exchanged  into  only  five  crowns  before  the  war, 
the  financial  expert  will  be  able  to  reckon  that  the 
crown  in  March  was  worth  one  fiftieth  of  what  it 
used  to  be  worth. 

There  is  the  same  amount  of  money  speculation 
in  Hungary  as  everywhere  else  in  Europe.  The  re- 
sult of  this  on  money  values  is  very  bad.  Round 
the  15  th  of  February  the  money  speculators  were 
having   a   delightful    time   in    Budapest.     On    the 

213 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

morning  of  a  certain  day  one  dollar  would  buy  300 
crowns;  at  noon  of  the  same  day  the  rate  had  been 
forced  down  to  220  for  a  dollar — a  difference  of 
approximately  25  per  cent.  Stock  speculation 
damages  many  people,  of  course,  and  is  not  a  par- 
ticularly savory  proceeding,  but  stock  speculation 
by  comparison  with  money  speculation  is  as  innocent 
and  harmless  as  passing  the  contribution  box. 
Money  speculation  reaches  and  affects  every  person 
in  the  nation. 

Food  is  plentiful  in  Hungary,  because  it  is  essen- 
tially an  agricultural  country.  Czechoslovakia  and 
Hungary  are  the  two  countries  in  Central  Europe 
where  an  outsider  with  money  can  buy  all  the  food 
that  he  wants,  and  in  almost  as  great  variety  as  it 
can  be  bought  in  France  or  Italy.  The  price  of  this 
food,  however,  is  so  high  that  it  is  almost  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  Hungarian.  A  family  of  three 
people  in  Budapest  that  wishes  to  have  meat  five 
times  a  week  and  set  a  table  that  will  keep  the 
entire  family  well  fed  must  spend  10,000  crowns  for 
food  each  month,  or  120,000  crowns  a  year.  It 
is  a  difficult  thing  in  Hungary,  however,  to  scrape 
together  120,000  crowns  a  year.  An  assistant  pro- 
fessor in  a  university  receives  1,000  crowns  a 
month,  or  12,000  crowns  a  year,  and  on  that  amount 
of  money  he  is  so  close  to  actual  starvation  that 
there  isn't  a  trace  of  humor  in  the  situation.  The 
trick  of  having  a  suit  of  clothes  turned  by  a  tailor  is 
the  oldest  of  old  stuff  in  Budapest.  They  learned  it 
years  ago.  Now  the  Magyars  are  having  their 
turned  clothes  re- turned,  so  that  one  sees  some 
pretty  pitiful  things  in  the  line  of  clothes. 

214 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

The  workmen  who  are  working  are  a  Httle  better 
off  than  university  professors,  because  the  average 
workman's  wage  is  loo  crowns  a  day.  There  are  a 
great  many  out  of  work,  however,  because  of  the 
universal  lack  of  raw  material  and  also  because  the 
Rumanians  gutted  so  many  factories  of  their  ma- 
chinery and  tools.  Probably  the  greatest  sufferers 
are  the  once  wealthy  people  who  owned  property 
in  what  is  now  Czechoslovakia  and  Rumania.  Once 
they  had  incomes;  to-day  they  have  nothing.  It  is 
bad  enough,  say  the  Magyars,  to  have  nothing  under 
the  best  of  conditions,  but  to  have  nothing  when 
everything  is  so  frightfully  expensive  is  many  times 
worse.  For  some  little  time  I  was  unable  to  grasp 
this  argument,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that  the  person 
who  has  nothing  when  prices  are  low  is  about  as 
badly  off  as  the  person  who  has  nothing  when  prices 
are  high.  "But,  don't  you  see,"  explained  the 
Magyars,  "that  when  we  pawn  our  belongings  in 
order  to  live,  we  have  to  pawn  so  very  much  because 
of  the  high  prices?" 

The  establishments  in  Budapest  which  traffic  in 
old  silver  or  jewels  are  doing  an  enormous  business, 
and  the  city  is  full  of  them.  I  went  into  shop  after 
shop  of  that  nature,  and  in  each  one  the  people  were 
lined  up  in  front  of  the  counter  like  bargain  hunters 
in  American  department  stores,  but  all  of  them  were 
selling,  always  selling.  In  all  the  stores  I  visited 
I  saw  not  a  single  person  buying. 

One  of  the  largest  shops  of  this  kind  was  owned 
and  managed  by  a  Hungarian  who,  years  ago,  worked 
for  one  of  the  largest  silver  manufacturers  in  Amer- 
ica.   That  man  was  one  of  the  busiest  n^en  I  have 

215 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

ever  seen.  His  shop  was  full  of  people  from  early 
morning  until  late  afternoon,  all  eager  to  sell  him 
heavy  old  silver  services  and  family  jewelry  and 
massive  candlesticks,  things  that  collectors  would 
have  fits  over. 

"I  spend  millions  of  crowns  each  month,"  said 
he,  "but  I  haven't  nearly  enough  money  to  buy  the 
beautiful  things  that  are  offered  to  me.  Everybody 
is  selling  all  that  he  has  in  order  to  get  food — selling, 
selling,  selling,  always  selling.  For  everyone  that 
comes  in  to  buy,  two  hundred  come  in  to  sell." 

"Then  how  do  you  live?"  I  asked  him.  "That 
arrangement  isn't  very  equal." 

"Don't  you  see,"  he  explained,  "that  the  people 
who  buy  are  foreigners — Italians  and  Frenchmen 
and  Englishmen  and  Americans  ?  Our  money  means 
nothing  to  you  people;  so  that  one  foreign  buyer 
makes  a  great  difference.  Only  a  short  time  ago 
an  Italian  gave  me  two  million  crowns  and  told  me 
to  buy  all  that  I  could  get  with  it.  You  see,  that 
is  eight  thousand  dollars.  Yet  for  that  amount  of 
money  I  was  able  to  buy  for  him  wonderful  old 
silver  that  Americans  will  be  glad  to  pay  sixty  thou- 
sand and  seventy  thousand  dollars  for  when  they 
come  to  Italy. 

"You  ought  to  buy  something,"  he  said  to  me, 
insinuatingly.  "You  could  sell  it  in  America  for 
fifty  times  what  you  pay  for  it." 

"What  would  you  suggest  that  I  buy?"  I  asked 
him. 

"Anything  at  all,"  he  replied,  cheerfully.  "That's 
the  nice  thing  about  it.  You  can  buy  blind  and 
still  make  money." 

216 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

A  baroness  came  in  with  a  bagful  of  family  plate. 
The  silver  buyer  examined  it  carefully,  accepted 
several  pieces,  and  handed  back  a  beautiful  silver 
fruit  basket.  The  baroness  asked  why  he  hadn't 
taken  it.  "It  isn't  silver,"  explained  the  silver 
buyer.  Poor  baroness!  Her  silver  wasn't  silver. 
It  was  more  humiliating  than  having  to  sell  her 
belongings.  I  asked  the  silver  buyer  about  her. 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders.  "Her  estates  are  in 
Czechoslovakia,"  said  he.  "She  can  get  nothing 
from  them.  She  is  selling  everything  from  her  town 
house.  When  everything  is  gone  ..."  He  turned 
up  his  hands  enigmatically. 

An  army  officer — a  colonel — came  in  and  sold  a 
gold  ring  for  500  crowns;  enough  to  buy  six  pounds 
of  bacon.  "That  man,"  said  the  silver  buyer,  "has 
one  of  the  finest  private  collections  of  old  gold  coins 
in  the  world.  He  cannot  take  them  from  the 
country  because  the  law  prohibits  it.  His  constant 
fear  is  that  he  will  have  to  sell  them  at  a  small  part 
of  their  value  in  order  to  live." 

A  woman  of  the  streets  came  in,  pouting,  and 
tried  to  sell  two  gold  bracelets  and  a  gold  watch. 
She  demanded  5,000  crowns  for  the  watch.  The 
dealer  offered  her  2,000.  She  accepted  it  and  went 
away,  still  pouting. 

A  poorly  dressed  man  came  in,  detached  the  chain 
from  his  watch  and  offered  it  for  sale.  The  dealer 
questioned  him  for  me.  He  was  employed,  he  said, 
in  the  City  Hall,  where  he  received  250  crowns  a 
month  and  free  lodging,  heat,  and  light.  But  he 
works  part  of  each  day  outside  City  Hall,  and 
labors  each  night,  so  that  his  total  yearly  earnings 

217 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

are  20,000  crowns.  In  spite  of  that  he  is  forced  to 
take  800  crowns  from  his  savings  each  month  in 
order  to  get  along.  And  even  with  that  he  and  his 
family  can  never  eat  meat  or  have  milk.  They  are 
vegetarians  in  spite  of  themselves,  subsisting  almost 
entirely  on  potatoes,  beans,  flour,  and  sugar.  As 
he  talked,  other  Magyars  came  in  to  sell  little  things: 
one  a  teapot,  one  a  pair  of  seed-pearl  earrings,  an- 
other a  stickpin,  one  a  silver  mirror  and  a  pair  of 
cuff  links.  They  gathered  round  the  speaker, 
nodding  their  heads  with  approval  at  every  word. 
Each  one  knew  the  exact  price  of  every  commodity; 
each  one  was  selling  his  last  possessions  in  order  to 
live. 

The  farmers,  like  the  farmers  of  every  country, 
are  in  far  better  shape  than  the  city  dwellers.  Owing 
to  the  difficulty  which  the  city  dwellers  have  in 
getting  food,  they  barter  with  the  farmers.  A 
roughly  dressed  farmer  came  into  Budapest,  entered 
the  best  shoe  store  in  the  city,  and  demanded  a  pair 
of  shoes.  The  shoe  dealer  shook  his  head.  '  *  They're 
six  hundred  crowns,"  he  said,  "and  I  think  you 
won't  be  able  to  pay  it."  "Why  not?"  asked  the 
farmer.  "In  my  grandfather's  time  and  in  my 
father's  time  and  in  my  time  the  price  of  a  pair  of 
shoes  has  always  been  equal  to  a  pair  of  chickens; 
and  to-day  it  is  the  same.  Will  you  give  me  the 
pair  of  shoes  for  my  two  chickens  or  shall  I  take 
them  to  the  market?"  The  shoe  dealer  said  that 
he'd  better  take  them  to  the  market.  He  did  so, 
and  soon  afterward  he  returned  to  the  shoe  store 
with  600  crowns — for  300  crowns  is  the  price  of  a 
chicken. 

218 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

That,  of  course,  makes  it  very  nice  for  the  farmer, 
but  it  helps  the  city  dweller  not  at  all.  Figures  com- 
piled by  Capt.  Gardner  Richardson,  chief  of  the 
Hoover  Child  Feeders,  or,  more  formally,  the  Amer- 
ican Relief  Administration,  in  Budapest,  show  that 
on  an  average  the  costs  of  seventeen  commodities 
are  sixty-six  times  as  high  as  they  were  in  August, 
1914;  whereas  salaries  have  not  begun  to  go  up 
proportionately.  In  other  words,  the  costs  of 
necessities  of  life  have  increased  6,600  per  cent, 
whereas  salaries  have  increased  only  from  400  to  800 
per  cent.  Let  that  sink  in,  all  you  people  who  find 
it  so  hard  to  struggle  along  when  you  find  prices  in- 
creased 100  per  cent.  Picture  yourself  confronted 
with  a  6,600-per-cent  increase  in  the  cost  of  bread, 
meat,  salt,  eggs,  shoes,  and  clothes.  It  takes  some- 
thing of  an  imagination.  A  man's  shirt  cost  5 
crowns  in  Budapest  before  the  war.  Now  it  costs 
180  crowns.  A  man's  hat  cost  8  crowns  before  the 
war.  Now  it  costs  650  crowns.  A  pair  of  men's 
stockings  used  to  cost  3/^  crown,  and  now  they 
cost  70  crowns.  Americans  must  imagine  them- 
selves paying  about  $35  for  a  one-dollar  shirt,  $150 
for  an  ordinary  derby  hat,  and  $10  for  a  pair  of 
socks  before  they  can  feel  that  their  imaginers  are 
working  with  sufficient  smoothness  to  enable  them  to 
get  the  Magyar  attitude.  Much  is  made  of  the  de- 
preciation of  the  German  mark  and  the  difficulties 
which  the  Germans  have  in  getting  along,  but  the 
Germans  aren't  within  several  kilometers  of  the  ter- 
rible position  in  which  the  Poles,  the  Austrians,  and 
the  Magyars  find  themselves.  The  Germans  are  un- 
questionably entitled  to  some  sympathy,  but  in 
15  219 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

the  League  of  Central  European  Nations  That 
Need  Sympathy,  Germany  is  pretty  well  down  in  the 
second  division. 

The  American  Relief  Administration  feeds  one 
meal  to  125,000  undernourished  Hungarian  children 
each  day.  Because  there  is  plenty  of  food  in  the 
farming  districts  the  feeding  is  restricted  to  the  city 
of  Budapest  and  its  suburbs,  and  to  the  mining  and 
industrial  districts.  In  addition  to  the  food  the 
Hoover  organization  has  shipped  to  Hungary  50,000 
outfits  of  children's  clothing — shoes,  stockings,  and 
an  overcoat  in  each  outfit.  An  American  Relief 
warehouse  has  also  been  opened  in  Budapest,  so 
that  the  Hungarians  may  receive  American  food  by 
presenting  food  drafts  from  America  at  the  ware- 
house. No  distinction  is  made  as  to  race,  creed,  or 
political  affiliation  of  the  children's  parents.  Stories 
have  gone  round  outside  that  Hebrew  children  are 
discriminated  against.  The  stories  are  absolutely 
untrue. 

Hungary,  in  March,  was  one  of  those  extremely 
rare  countries  where  an  American  diplomat  could 
live  on  his  salary.  Vienna,  having  received  many 
foreigners  within  her  gates,  kept  very  well  in  touch 
with  foreign  exchange  and  strove  to  put  prices  up 
to  a  point  where  foreigners  would  pay  real  money 
for  what  they  bought.  But  not  so  many  foreigners 
had  found  their  way  to  Budapest  when  the  first 
warm  days  of  spring  came  stealing  up  the  Danube; 
and  the  prices  that  foreigners  paid  were  in  some  in- 
stances even  more  startling  in  their  lowness  than 
Vienna  prices,  which  struck  Americans  as  being  about 
the  lowest  things  in  the  world. 

220 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

I  had  a  large  room  in  the  Budapest  hotel  which 
the  Bolsheviks  had  honored  by  seizing  for  their  head- 
quarters, and  which  can  therefore  be  unhesitatingly- 
designated  as  the  best.  However  the  Bolsheviks 
may  be  maligned,  they  must  always  be  given  credit 
for  wanting  to  live  as  the  capitalists  live.  They 
hate  the  capitalists,  I  know,  but  they  dearly  love 
the  capitalists'  homes  and  money  and  automobiles 
and  power.  In  fact,  the  only  thing  about  capital 
that  they  dislike  is  the  nerve  of  the  capitalists  in 
having  what  the  Bolsheviks  want  but  are  incapable 
of  getting  by  lawful  means. 

At  any  rate,  this  hotel  fronted  on  the  Danube,  as 
do  most  of  the  good  Budapest  hotels.  My  windows 
looked  across  the  Danube  to  the  heights  of  Buda 
and  the  fortifications  and  the  great  palace  of  Maria 
Theresa  that  tops  them.  Under  the  windows  the 
Danube  steamers  plied  up  and  down,  and  vessels 
from  Greece  and  the  Black  Sea  discharged  their 
cargoes.  In  American  money  that  room  cost  17 
cents  a  day — or  41  crowns. 

I  have  before  me  a  dinner  card  from  the  Hungaria 
Hotel,  whose  restaurant  has  the  reputation  of  being 
the  best  in  Budapest — and  the  best  in  Budapest  is 
very  good.  It  is  dated  March  4;  1920,  on  which 
date  a  dollar  bill  could  be  exchanged  for  250  crowns. 
Translating  the  items  into  an  American  money 
equivalent,  I  find  that  the  following  prices  obtained : 
consomm6  in  a  cup,  i  1-5  cents;  cold  assorted  meats, 
12  cents;  goose  liver  in  jelly,  13  cents;  cold  chicken, 
25  cents; 'cold  fish  with  mayonnaise,  12  cents;  sar- 
dines, 4  cents;  carp  in  red  wine,  16  cents;  ham 
omelet,  16  cents;   grilled  lamb,  18  cents;   fried  filets 

221 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

of  goose  liver,  25  cents;  goulash  en  casserole,  8  cents; 
roast  beef,  20  cents;  roast  lamb,  20  cents;  beefsteak 
hash,  20  cents;  potatoes,  lyi  cents;  creamed  spin- 
ach, 3  cents;  Brussels  sprouts,  10  cents;  salad,  2}^ 
cents;   tarts,  5  cents;  and  cream  cheese,  i>^  cents. 

Turning  carelessly  from  the  dinner  card  to  the  wine 
list,  I  remark  in  passing  that  the  best  Hungarian 
still  wines,  on  the  same  day,  cost  from  12  cents  a 
quart  to  42  cents  a  quart,  while  the  best  of  a  list  of 
thirty-one  Hungarian  champagnes  nicked  the  buyer 
to  the  extent  of  $1 .2 1  a  quart.  Any  person  who  con- 
templates packing  up  and  rushing  to  Hungary  to 
spend  the  rest  of  his  life  should  remember,  however, 
that  it  is  very  difficult  to  get  there  without  a  good 
reason  for  going,  that  ms^s  are  hard  to  obtain,  and 
that  train  travel  in  Central  Europe  for  anyone  but 
officials  or  persons  with  influential  connections  has 
the  same  deleterious  effect  on  the  human  system 
that  being  dragged  backward  through  a  knot  hole 
would  have. 

Another  reason  that  Budapest  prices  are  not  so 
high  as  Vienna  prices  lies  in  the  fact  that  tradesmen 
are  forbidden  by  law  to  make  more  than  1 5  per  cent 
profit  on  the  cost  of  the  article  to  the  dealer.  With 
the  falling  rate  of  exchange  this  frequently  makes  it 
rather  hard  on  the  tradesman.  A  furrier,  in  giving 
me  the  prices  of  various  furs  in  his  shop,  quoted  a 
red-fox  neckpiece,  lined  with  gray  satin,  at  1,400 
crowns,  or  about  $5.60  in  American  money.  "We 
used  to  be  able  to  buy  an  undressed  fox-skin  for 
five  or  six  crowns,"  he  complained,  "but  to-day  we 
have  to  pay  two  thousand  crowns  for  an  undressed 
skin." 

222 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

"How  can  that  be,"  I  protested,  "when  you  are 
selling  this  fox  neckpiece  for  fourteen  hundred 
crowns?" 

"The  fourteen  hundred  crowns,"  he  replied,  "rep- 
resents the  original  cost  of  the  skin,  the  cost  of  making 
it  up,  and  fifteen  per  cent  profit.  A  greater  profit 
than  that  is  illegal." 

He  deserved  great  credit  for  his  extreme  honesty, 
of  course,  but  his  career  as  a  business  man,  I  fear, 
is  doomed  to  an  early  and  tragic  end. 

The  following  prices  are  taken  at  random  from 
my  notebook,  with  American  equivalents  for  the 
Hungarian  prices:  women's  hats  in  the  best  mil- 
linery shops,  $8;  women's  hats  in  the  mediocre 
shops,  $1.70;  a  German-made  safety  razor  with  a 
dozen  blades,  35  cents;  a  box  in  the  diamond  horse- 
shoe of  the  beautiful  Royal  Opera  House,  85  cents; 
a  German-made  vacuum  bottle,  40  cents;  Hun- 
garian whisky  with  a  label  reading,  "Made  Ac- 
cording to  the  Scotch  Manner,"  98  cents  a  quart; 
frogs'  legs  in  the  market,  Y5  cent  a  pair;  Ameri- 
can canned  salmon  in  7^-ounce  cans,  24  cents 
a  can;  Japanese  canned  salmon  in  16 -ounce  cans, 
24  cents  a  can;  a  large  can  of  American  pork  and 
beans,  9  cents;  a  can  of  American  soup  of  one  of  the 
most  popular  brands,  4  cents.  The  price  of  this 
American  soup,  which  is  less  than  half  what  it  costs 
in  America,  is  reminiscent  of  Italian  trading  with 
Vienna.  Italian  salesmen  brought  sardines  to  Vienna 
and  sold  them  at  a  fine  profit.  Later,  when  the 
Austrian  exchange  rate  fell,  the  same  Italian  mer- 
chants went  back  to  Vienna,  bought  back  all  their 
sardines  at  greatly  increased  prices  in  crowns,  shipped 

223 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

them  back  to  Italy  and  resold  them,  making  a  larger 
profit  on  the  second  transaction  than  they  had  on 
the  first  one. 

However,  the  Magyars  are  learning  rapidly.  A 
foreigner  who  asks  prices  when  accompanied  by  a 
Magyar  is  given  far  lower  prices  than  he  would  re- 
ceive if  he  went  alone.  An  American  had  an  offer 
of  an  official  residence  for  40,000  crowns  a  year 
when  the  landlord  wasn't  sure  of  his  connections. 
Later,  when  the  landlord  discovered  that  he  was 
an  American  official,  the  price  was  jumped  from 
40,000  crowns  to  300,000,  which  would  put  a  kan- 
garoo to  blush,  as  one  might  say,  in  the  matter  of 
jumping. 

In  spite  of  the  tremendous  cost  of  everything  in 
crowns,  there  are  plenty  of  people  in  Budapest  who 
are  wearing  beautiful  clothes  and  filling  the  restau- 
rants until  midnight  every  night.  They  are  war 
profiteers  and  food  profiteers  and  people  who  are 
engaged  in  smuggling  goods  out  to  Switzerland, 
where  they  are  sold  at  an  immense  profit.  The 
hotels  are  crowded.  For  a  time  I  slept  in  the  reading 
room  of  the  Hungaria  Hotel — an  enormous  state 
chamber  with  a  glass  chandelier  weighing  about 
seven  tons. 

"How  about  a  bathroom?"  I  asked  the  manager. 

He  looked  at  me  reproachfully.  "There  is  a 
baron  sleeping  in  the  bathroom,"  said  he. 

Wherever  a  person  goes  in  Hungary  he  falls  over 
a  baron.  They  seem  to  be  almost  as  common  as 
are  doctors  of  philosophy  and  science  and  law 
and  what  not  in  Germany  and  Austria.  Princesses 
are  also  very  common  in  Hungary.     A  brick  thrown 

224 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

at  random  into  any  dining  room  would  hit  either  a 
baron  or  a  princess.  There  is  something  in  the 
Magyar  blood  that  craves  these  Httle  fringes  and 
advance  guards  of  royalty,  just  as  there  is  something 
in  their  blood  which  demands  a  king  to  wear  the 
sacred  crown  of  Saint  Stephen.  They  have  a  lost, 
uncompleted  feeling  without  a  king.  I  took  the 
matter  up  in  some  detail  with  a  number  of  Magyars, 
and  the  impression  that  I  gathered  from  them  was 
that  a  Magyar  without  a  king  felt  a  good  deal  like 
a  man  on  Main  Street  without  his  trousers. 

The  sacred  crown  of  Saint  Stephen,  to  the  Mag- 
yars, is  a  very  potent  emblem.  If  America  had  some 
particular  object  in  which  were  blended  the  Liberty 
Bell,  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  the  American  eagle, 
Lincoln's  Address  at  Gettysburg,  and  the  American- 
ism of  Theodore  Roosevelt,  it  would  be  held  in  the 
same  high  esteem  in  which  the  sacred  crown  of 
Saint  Stephen  is  held  in  Hungary.  It  is  a  neat- 
looking  dome-shaped  crown  topped  with  a  cross 
which  is  bent  over  as  though  one  of  the  earlier 
wearers  of  it  had  knocked  it  off  the  bureau.  It  was 
presented  to  the  first  apostolic  king  of  Hungary, 
Saint  Stephen,  by  Pope  Sylvester  II;  and  Saint 
Stephen  had  himself  crowned  with  it  in  the  year 
looi.  All  the  kings  of  Hungary  have  been  crowned 
with  it  ever  since.  When  Austria  and  Hungary 
were  joined  together  it  wasn't  enough  for  the  emperor 
of  Austria-Hungary  to  be  crowned  in  Vienna. 
He  had  to  come  down  to  Presburg  or  to  Budapest 
and  be  crowned  with  the  sacred  crown  of  Saint 
Stephen  before  the  Magyars  considered  that  the 
job  had  been  properly  completed.     Little  replicas 

225 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

of  the  crown  are  sold  in  all  Hungarian  jewelry 
shops. 

The  hated  double  eagle  of  Austria  has  been  dis- 
carded as  an  emblem  by  the  Magyars  and  sup- 
planted by  the  sacred  crown  of  Saint  Stephen.  It 
is  stenciled  in  silver  on  the  fronts  of  the  steel  helmets 
of  Horthy's  army. 

To  the  Magyars,  a  king  adorned  with  the  sacred 
crown  of  Saint  Stephen  means  security  and  safety. 
I  asked  many  Magyars  why  they  wanted  a  king, 
and  that  is  the  answer  which  was  made  by  all  of 
them.  "A  king  means  security  and  safety."  It  is 
safe  to  say  that  90  per  cent  of  the  Magyars  want  to 
be  ruled  by  a  king.  "We  have  tried  a  republic," 
they  say,  "and  we  have  had  a  taste  of  Bolshevism. 
Now  we  want  a  king  back  again." 

The  Magyars  really  don't  care  whether  they  have 
a  good  king  or  a  bad  king,  a  strong  king  or  a  weak 
king,  so  long  as  he's  a  king.  Their  problem  is  a 
bit  difficult,  because  they  can't  go  out  and  pick  up  a 
capable-looking  college  professor  or  general  or  drug- 
store proprietor  and  make  him  king.  They  must 
have  a  man  who  is  thoroughly  familiar  with  the 
kinging  business,  who  can  employ  eighteen  or 
twenty  thousand  courtiers  and  maintain  a  dozen 
castles  and  palaces  without  caring  anything  about 
the  expenses,  and  who  knows  the  members  of  all  the 
royal  families  of  Europe  by  their  first  names.  This 
requires  a  man  with  royal  blood  in  his  veins;  and 
because  of  the  fact  that  so  many  people  of  royal 
blood  are  either  marooned  in  Switzerland  or  hived 
up  in  Holland  for  the  rest  of  their  lives,  the  Magyars 
are  having  a  hard  time  of  it.     Admiral  Horthy  has 

226 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

been  mentioned  for  king  several  times,  but  the  men- 
tions are  not  received  with  any  enthusiasm.  Horthy, 
say  the  Magyars,  is  a  brave  man,  a  strong  man,  a 
lover  of  law  and  order,  and  just  the  man  to  restore 
and  maintain  order  in  Hungary.  But  he  has  no 
royal  blood  in  him.  Therefore  the  Magyars  do  not 
want  him  for  king.  He  represents  exactly  what  the 
Magyars  ought  to  have  in  the  king  line,  but  since 
he  isn't  royal  the  Magyars  would  prefer  some  half- 
baked  kinglet.  Horthy  is  the  regent  of  Hungary — 
the  uncrowned  king.  When  the  time  comes,  say 
the  Magyars,  he  will  name  the  king  who  is  to  rule, 
but  he  can  never  have  the  sacred  crown  of  Saint 
Stephen  blocked  to  fit  his  head.  That's  what  the 
Magyars  say,  but  they  have  received  surprises  in 
the  past  year,  and  they  are  apt  to  have  more. 

At  dinner  parties,  in  coffee  houses,  on  street  cor- 
ners— everywhere  the  argument  over  a  king  is  al- 
ways raging.  It  is  an  involved  and,  to  an  American, 
an  incredible  affair.  One  party,  the  Legitimists, 
wants  Hungary  to  be  ruled  by  the  former  Austrian 
Emperor  Karl.  Karl  is  not  only  a  weakling,  an 
incompetent,  and  a  trimmer,  but  he  is  a  Hapsburg; 
and  Hapsburgs  are  forbidden  by  the  Peace  Treaty. 
None  the  less,  the  Legitimists  want  him,  because  he 
was  once  crowned  with  the  sacred  crown  of  Saint 
Stephen,  Consequently  they  claim  he  is  still 
Hungary's  king.  It  makes  no  difference  to  them  that 
Karl,  just  before  the  end  of  the  war,  in  spite  of 
having  sworn  to  protect  the  integrity  of  Hungary, 
said  to  the  Croats,  "Take  from  Hungary  what  you 
will;  only  remain  under  my  scepter."  The  Legiti- 
mists can  stomach  anything  so  long  as  it's  royal.     It 

2?7 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

is  hard  to  reconcile  the  Magyars*  declarations  of 
love  for  the  Entente  and  their  professed  hatred  for 
Germany  and  Austria  with  the  equanimity  and  even 
eagerness  with  which,  by  their  own  confession,  they 
would  welcome  a  Hapsburg  king. 

The  anti-Legitimists,  who  outnumber  the  Legiti- 
mists five  to  one,  lean  in  several  different  directions 
where  a  king  is  concerned.  At  leaning  they  are 
heavy  rivals  of  the  Leaning  Tower  of  Pisa.  They 
are  particularly  given  to  leaning  toward  Prince 
Joseph,  who  is  living  quietly  in  Budapest  at  the 
present  time  and  saying  nothing  in  a  very  cagy  and 
royal  manner.  Prince  Joseph  is  also  a  Hapsburg, 
but  a  Hapsburg,  according  to  the  Magyars,  who 
has  always  been  against  the  Hapsburg  policies  and 
the  Hapsburg  intrigues.  He  is  also  related  to  the 
Belgian  royal  family  through  an  aunt,  a  great-great- 
grandmother,  a  third  cousin,  or  some  other  near  and 
dear  relative;  and  the  anti-Legitimists  are  relying 
on  this  relationship  to  take  off  the  Hapsburg  curse 
so  far  as  the  Entente  is  concerned.  In  the  war  he 
first  commanded  an  army  division,  then  an  army 
corps,  then  he  was  given  command  of  the  Transyl- 
vania front,  and  finally  wound  up  on  the  Italian 
front.  He  is  said  by  the  Magyars  to  have  led  his 
men  into  action  under  heavy  fire  repeatedly,  and  to 
have  been  that  unusual  combination,  a  very  popular 
commander  and  an  excellent  disciplinarian. 

It  is  a  rather  sad  specimen  of  royalty,  however, 
who  is  not  mentioned  at  least  twice  a  week  as  a 
possible  king  of  Himgary.  A  few  of  the  royal 
brotherhood  even  go  so  far  as  to  hire  press  agents 
to  take  up  a  residence  in  Budapest  and  see  that 

228 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

their  employers  are  mentioned.  There  is  loud  talk 
of  an  English  prince,  for  the  Magyars  are  very  fond 
of  the  British.  In  fact,  the  British  are  the  most 
popular  foreigners  in  Hungary,  with  the  Americans 
running  them  a  close  second.  The  young  King 
of  Bulgaria  has  had  a  large  amount  of  quiet  but  in- 
tense propaganda  thrust  forward  in  his  behalf;  and 
the  Rumanians  thought  it  would  be  very  nice  if 
the  King  of  Rumania,  who  is  not  at  all  overworked 
at  home,  owing  to  the  activities  of  the  Rumanian 
queen,  should  occupy  his  spare  moments  by  holding 
down  the  Hungarian  throne.  This  suggestion,  it 
should  be  added,  roused  as  much  merriment  in  Hun- 
gary as  a  new  Chaplin  fikn.  The  Serbians  started 
a  little  campaign  in  behalf  of  their  king  for  the 
Hungarian  throne,  but  it  didn't  get  across  very  well. 
The  Hungarians  have  heard  too  many  tales  about 
the  manner  in  which  the  preceding  king  of  Serbia 
met  his  death,  so  it  flivved.  Young  Prince  Charles, 
second  son  of  King  Albert  and  Queen  Elisabeth  of 
Belgium,  also  gets  his  name  in  the  Hungarian  papers 
regularly  as  a  likely  candidate.  I  heard  no  mention 
of  the  Sultan  of  Sulu  or  the  King  of  Abyssinia  as 
possible  occupants  of  the  Hungarian  throne,  but 
almost  every  other  ruler,  near  ruler,  and  would-be 
ruler  was  mentioned.  As  to  the  question  of  who  the 
unlucky  man  will  be,  you  are  at  liberty  to  make 
your  own  guess.  Whoever  it  is,  the  Hungarians 
will  be  thoroughly  satisfied  so  long  as  he's  a  regular 
king. 

The  Magyars  have  swung  too  far  in  their  reaction 
against  Bolshevism,  just  as  Czechoslovakia  and 
Austria  have  swung  too  far  in  their  reaction  against  a 

229 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

monarchy.     They're  all  sick  and  in  need  of  a  large 
amount  of  doctoring. 

I  found  one  man  in  Central  Europe  who  is  optimis- 
tic over  the  future  relationship  between  the  nations 
of  Central  Europe,  Hungary  included.  This  was 
Admiral  Troubridge,  the  British  head  of  the  Danube 
Commission,  which  exists  for  the  purpose  of  facilitat- 
ing and  encouraging  commerce  on  the  Danube. 
The  Danube,  by  the  terms  of  the  Treaty,  is  an 
international  waterway,  and  all  commerce  in  transit 
may  pass  freely  between  the  Black  Forest  and  the 
Black  Sea  without  interference  on  the  part  of  inter- 
mediate states.  It  may,  that  is,  if  it  is  lucky. 
Admiral  Troubridge  based  his  argument  on  the  im- 
provement that  had  taken  place  in  Danube  traffic 
between  November,  1919,  and  March,  1920.  When 
the  Admiral  made  a  trip  of  inspection  up  the  Dan- 
ube last  November,  practically  everyone  shot  at 
his  steamer.  Rumanian,  Serb,  Austrian,  and  Czech 
soldiers,  stationed  along  the  banks  of  the  river, 
took  pot  shots  at  the  steamer  every  little  while, 
apparently  for  the  mere  joy  of  shooting.  He  was 
carrying  a  crate  of  geese  for  food,  and  one  of  the 
geese  was  killed  by  a  Czech  bullet. 

The  Admiral  stopped  the  steamer,  went  ashore,  and 
read  the  riot  act  to  the  shooters.  Their  only  reason 
for  shooting  seemed  to  be  that  they  had  guns  and 
should,  therefore,  use  them  on  any  moving  object. 
Every  boat  that  moved  on  the  river  became  a  target 
for  uniformed  marksmen.  That  was  in  November, 
1919.  In  March,  1920,  four  months  later,  passenger 
steamers  were  making  frequent  trips  between  Vienna 
and  Budapest  without  a  shot  being  fired  at  them. 

230 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

The  opinion  was  hazarded  that  the  soldiers  had 
found  from  long  experience  that  they  couldn't  hit 
the  steamers,  and  that  they  were  waiting  for  some- 
thing bigger  to  come  along.  The  Admiral  didn't 
think  so.  He  thought  that  the  nations  were  calm- 
ing down.  He  thought  that  the  disturbances  of  the 
immediate  present  should  be  viewed  with  a  tolerant 
eye,  and  eventually — say,  in  fifty  or  sixty  years — 
the  world  will  be  rewarded  by  seeing  all  the  nations 
bordering  on  the  Danube  Hving  together  in  complete 
amity  and  accord.  That  was  the  most  optimistic 
view  of  the  situation  that  I  found — and  fifty  or  sixty 
years  is  a  long  time  to  wait. 

The  general  opinion  regarding  Central  Europe  is 
that  it  is  merely  an  extension  of  the  Balkan  States, 
carefully  primed  and  pointed  toward  a  long  and 
complicated  series  of  wars  and  revolutions  and 
governmental  crises.  As  a  hotbed  for  riots,  shooting 
frays,  and  general  cussedness,  say  diplomats,  soldiers, 
and  travelers.  Central  America  has  at  last  been  out- 
done by  Central  Europe.  Compared  with  the  Cen- 
tral Europe  of  to-day,  Central  America  isn't  in  it. 

All  the  Allied  nations  are  playing  politics  and 
favorites  in  the  new  Central  Europe,  and  the  wheels 
are  revolving  with  such  vigor  that  anyone  who  tries 
to  interfere,  or  even  attempts  to  examine  the  wheels 
too  closely,  is  more  than  likely  to  lose  a  couple  of 
fingers  or  to  have  his  coat  torn  off. 

Italy  wishes  to  secure  the  friendship  of  both 
Rumania  and  Hungary  in  order  to  have  somebody 
to  hit  Jugoslavia  in  the  back  if  Jugoslavia  tries  to 
start  anything  over  Fiume.  France  is  supporting 
Czechoslovakia  so  that  she  may  have  help  when 

231 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Germany  fights  again  with  France.  Consequently 
she  is  opposed  to  taking  anything  from  Czecho- 
slovakia, no  matter  how  strong  Hungary's  claims 
may  be.  England  is  deeply  interested  in  Hungary 
because  of  her  commercial  possibilities,  and  also  be- 
cause it  gives  her  a  strong  position  from  which  to 
take  graceful  dives  into  Central  European  politics. 
Italy  is  opposed  to  Czechoslovakia  because  Czecho- 
slovakia and  Jugoslavia  are  close  friends,  and  any- 
thing which  strengthens  Jugoslavia  is  offensive  to 
Italy.  That  is  the  cloudiest  beginning  of  that  fright- 
ful mess  known  as  Central  European  politics.  It  has 
more  branches  than  a  banyan  tree  or  the  Boston 
and  Maine  Railroad.  To  go  into  it  more  deeply 
at  this  juncture  would  only  result  in  giving  the 
reader  a  headache. 

Meanwhile  the  Magyars  claim  that  Slovakia  has 
been  stolen  from  them  and  that  they  intend  to  have 
it  back.  If  they  wait  long  enough  and  with  sufficient 
patience,  they  claim,  Slovakia  will  separate  from  the 
Czechs  and  come  back  of  its  own  accord.  There  are 
700,000  Magyars  in  Slovakia  who  are  forced  to  live 
under  Czech  rule;  the  Czechs  have  stolen  the  Hun- 
garian city  of  Presburg;  they  are  oppressing  the 
Magyars.     Will  the  Magyars  endure  it? 

Nem!    Nem!    Soha! 

Rusinia  is  also  a  part  of  Hungary,  and  it  has  been 
taken  into  Czechoslovakia.  By  this  Hungary  has 
been  deprived  of  pine  forests  which  are  an  economic 
necessity  to  her.  The  Rusins  are  starving  because 
they  can  no  longer  come  down  on  to  the  Hungarian 
farms  and  earn  their  winter's  provisions.  Can  the 
Magyars  supinely  endure  such  a  state  of  affairs  ? 

232 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

Nem!  Nem!  Soha!  Not  so  that  you  could 
notice  it! 

The  Rumanians  have  come  into  Hungary  and 
stolen  thousands  of  square  miles  of  territory  that 
does  not  belong  to  them.  They  are  forcing  3 ,000,000 
Magyars  to  live  under  a  government  which  is  far  less 
advanced  than  the  government  under  which  they 
were  brought  up.  They  have  stolen  provisions  and 
cattle  and  live  stock  of  every  description  from  the 
Magyars,  leaving  thousands  of  them  destitute  and 
helpless.  Will  the  Magyars  submit  to  this  loss  of 
territory  which  is  theirs,  and  to  the  oppression  of 
3,000,000  Magyars  in  the  stolen  districts? 

Nem!    Not  by  a  jugful  of  Nems! 

The  Allies  have  given  German  West  Hungary  to  the 
Austrians.  But  that  is  Magyar  territory,  settled  by 
German  immigrants.  The  Hungarian-Germans  are 
separated  from  Austria  by  mountains,  and  they  can- 
not cross  the  mountains  or  have  economic  inter- 
course with  Austria  unless  they  use  balloons.  Their 
economic  future  lies  with  Hungary,  not  with  Austria. 
The  land  belongs  to  Hungary,  say  the  Magyars, 
and  the  inhabitants  wish  to  remain  with  Hun- 
gary. Will  Hungary  suffer  this  land  to  be  torn 
from  her? 

Nem!  Nem!  A  hundred  times  Nem!  And  a 
thousand  times  Soha! 

The  banks  of  the  Danube  at  Budapest  are  under- 
laid with  hot  springs,  sulphur  springs,  saline  springs, 
smelly  springs,  and  very  smelly  springs.  Huge  and 
sumptuous  baths  have  been  built  over  many  of  these 
springs — not  to  hold  in  the  smell,  but  so  that  the 
people  can,  en  joy  the  baths.     Admiral  Horthy  had 

2^3 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

taken  over  one  of  the  largest  of  these  buildings  and 
was  doing  his  dictating  from  it.  I  went  there  and 
found  the  building  full  of  soldiers  wearing  the  old 
German  tin  hats  emblazoned  on  the  front  with  the 
sacred  crown  of  Saint  Stephen;  swashbuckling  hus- 
sars with  little  peanut  jackets  edged  with  black 
Persian  lamb  round  the  collar  and  the  cuffs  and  the 
lower  edges  of  the  bobtailed  coats ;  officers  fresh  from 
the  field  with  the  new  and  unmistakable  insignia 
of  the  Horthy  army — a  single  large  feather  sticking 
up  pugnaciously  from  the  fronts  of  their  jaunty  caps; 
officers  with  hundreds  of  pounds  of  gold  braid  cun- 
ningly attached  to  unexpected  parts  of  their  uniforms. 
Aids  and  secretaries  told  me  that  Horthy  worked  from 
eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  midnight. 

I  found  him  plowing  through  a  mass  of  papers. 
He  was  wearing  a  plain-blue  uniform,  like  the  British 
naval  uniform,  and  he  looked  and  acted  and  talked 
like  a  quiet,  affable,  and  likable  Englishman — though 
his  speech  sounded  a  bit  as  if  he  were  affecting  a 
slight  Weber-Fieldsian  dialect. 

I  asked  him  what,  in  his  opinion,  Hungary  needed 
the  most  in  the  way  of  help.  He  smiled  somewhat 
ruefully.  "I  will  not  say  'arms,' "  said  he,  and  then 
he  stopped.  But  he  said  it  in  such  a  way  that  it 
was  impossible  not  to  gather  that  if  Hungary  could 
have  the  arms  that  she  needed  she  would  be  quite 
competent  to  look  out  for  her  future  without  any 
help  from  anyone.  ' '  We  have  enemies  on  every  side 
of  us,"  Horthy  explained.  "They  have  stolen 
from  us  whatever  they  could,  and  they  long  to  steal 
more.  The  situation  is  an  impossible  one.  I  shall 
never  do  anything  which  goes  against  the  orders  of 

234 


FOR  OVER  A  THOUSAND  YEARS 

the  Allies,  but  we  hope  to  be  permitted  to  protect 
ourselves  against  our  enemies.  Just  at  present  we 
have  been  stripped;  we  are  a  beggar  nation;  and 
there  is  nothing  more  which  our  enemies  can  take. 
But  in  the  autumn,  or  next  year,  when  we  are  pro- 
ducing more  food  than  they,  the  robber  nations 
will  want  to  seize  from  us  the  food  which  they  do 
not  possess.  Unless  we  can  protect  ourselves  they 
will  do  so." 

Horthy  explained  that  the  country  still  had  hopes 
of  being  able  to  feed  itself  next  autumn.  "When  the 
Rumanians  robbed  our  farmers,"  said  he,  "the 
farmers  were  able  to  conceal  a  great  deal,  and  bury 
much  seed  where  the  Rumanians  were  unable  to 
find  it.  This  is  now  being  brought  to  light,  and 
the  patriotic  farmers  are  sending  it  to  us  for  dis- 
tribution." 

I  spoke  of  the  barbed-wire  entanglements  and 
trenches  which  the  Czechs  had  made  on  the  border 
between  Slovakia  and  Hungary.  "The  Czechs 
speak  of  the  Hungarian  spring  offensive,  and  of  the 
inciting  of  Bolshevism  in  Slovakia  by  the  Magyars 
so  that  they  may  have  an  excuse  for  marching  on 
the  country.     How  about  it?"  I  asked. 

Horthy  smiled  contemptuously.  "That's  only 
their  guilty  consciences,"  said  he.  "They  have 
taken  what  doesn't  belong  to  them,  and  they  know 
it.  Czechoslovakia  is  on  the  verge  of  Bolshevism, 
we  believe,  but  if  it  should  go  Bolshevik  we  shall 
only  defend  ourselves.  I  have  asked  Admiral 
Troubridge  to  send  a  gunboat  to  Presburg  to  protect 
the  Magyars  there  against  Bolshevik  attacks.  That 
has  been  my  only  action." 

16  235 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

"And  when  the  Magyars  say,  'Nem!  Nem!  Soha!* 
do  they  mean  it?"  I  asked. 

"The  Magyars  are  fighters  for  what  they  beheve 
to  be  right,"  said  Horthy.  "America  recognized 
that  years  ago  in  the  honor  which  she  did  to  our 
great  patriot,  Kossuth,  and  the  addresses  which 
were  made  to  him  by  the  greatest  men  in  America 
when  he  went  there  over  half  a  century  ago.  I  feel 
sure  that  if  we  wait  long  enough  the  lands  which 
have  been  unjustly  taken  from  us  will  fall  back 
to  us  of  their  own  accord.  They  are  ours  and  they 
have  always  been  ours.  But  it  is  hard  to  wait  when 
Magyar  people  are  being  forced  to  live  under 
civilizations  which  are  lower  than  their  own.  These 
things  are  wrong,  and  the  Magyars,  as  I  have  said, 
are  fighters  for  what  they  believe  to  be  right. 

"My  greatest  wish  is  that  Americans  might  come 
to  Hungary  in  great  numbers.  We  are  deeply  grate- 
ful for  all  that  America  has  done  for  Hungary  in  the 
past,  and  we  are  confident  that  all  Americans  who 
come  to  us  will  realize  the  wrong  that  has  been  done 
to  us  and  give  us  their  sympathy  and  their  un- 
derstanding." 


V 

ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

IN  Italy  there  is  a  popular  and  fascinating  game 
known  as  "morra."  The  game  is  easily  played, 
for  it  requires  no  expensive  tools  and  no  outlay 
for  playing  fields,  special  garments,  or  other  hin- 
drances. Its  only  requirements  are  two  players, 
each  of  whom  must  have  a  loud  voice  and  one 
hand  with  five  fingers  on  it.  Thus  the  game  is 
within  the  reach  of  practically  everyone. 

To  play  the  game  of  morra,  the  two  players  face 
each  other.  Each  one  raises  his  clenched  hand 
shoulder  high  and  suddenly  brings  it  down  in  front 
of  him  with  one  or  more  fingers  extended.  At  the 
same  time  he  bawls  out  a  number.  The  number 
which  he  bawls  out  is  his  guess  as  to  the  number  of 
fingers  which  have  extended  from  his  opponent's 
hand  plus  the  number  which  have  been  extended 
from  his  own  hand.  Thus,  he  may  stick  out  two 
fingers,  but  shriek  "Five!"  in  ear-splitting  tones — 
the  idea  being  that  he  guesses  that  his  opponent  will 
extend  three  fingers.  Or  he  may  thrust  down  his 
hand  with  all  the  fingers  extended  and  howl  "Ten!" 
which  means  that  his  opponent  will  also  have  to 
extend  his  fingers  with  equal  generosity  if  the  guess 

237, 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

is  to  be  correct.  That,  in  effect,  is  the  game  of 
morra.  It  has  few  rules.  One  of  the  rules  is  that 
when  one  of  the  players  has  ten  correct  guesses  to 
his  credit,  the  other  player  shall  buy  him  a  drink. 
Another  of  the  rules  is  that  when  the  players  begin 
to  fight  over  the  game,  as  they  invariably  do,  the 
onlookers  shall  make  an  attempt  to  separate  them 
before  one  of  them  draws  a  carving  knife  and  dis- 
sects the  other  in  a  crude  but  effective  manner. 
Still  another  rule  is  that  nobody  in  Italy  shall  play 
morra  after  ten  o'clock  at  night.  This  rule  is  a 
national  law.  The  Italian  lawgivers  discovered 
that  so  many  Italians  had  settled  down  to  steady 
drinking  by  ten  o'clock  at  night  that  morra  fights 
which  started  after  that  hour  were  not  easily  quelled 
and  consequently  were  very  apt  to  end  fatally. 

That  is  the  great  trouble  with  morra  as  played  in 
Italy.  In  spite  of  its  childish  simplicity  and  its 
lack  of  intricate  and  bewildering  rules,  the  Italians 
always  fight  over  it.  Whenever  a  person  sees  a 
game  of  morra  in  progress  and  is  suffering  from  bore- 
dom, he  needs  only  to  hang  around  for  a  few  min- 
utes in  order  to  witness  an  exciting  and  possibly 
hair-raising  fight.  Morra  causes  more  accidents 
each  year  than  do  all  the  automobiles  and  railroad 
trains  in  Italy.  Usually  the  accidents  are  cutting 
accidents,  though  occasionally  they  are  indirectly 
caused  by  chairs,  table  legs,  boot  heels,  and  other 
blunt  instruments.  The  Japanese  play  a  game  which 
is  almost  exactly  like  morra,  but  the  Japanese  do  not 
fight  over  it.  Similar  games  provide  relaxation  and 
amusement  without  fighting  in  several  other  coun- 
tries.    It  is  only  in  Italy  that  the  game  breaks  up 

238 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

in  violence  which  brings  the  police  running  madly 
to  the  scene,  and  in  raucous  cuss  words  of  such 
ferocity  that  Httle  children  are  constrained  to  seek 
sanctuary  in  convenient  drain  pipes. 

There  is,  however,  a  point  which  is  frequently 
overlooked  in  morra  fights.  After  the  contestants 
have  been  separated  and  the  table-leg  splinters  have 
been  removed  or  the  cuts  closed  with  neat  button- 
hole stitches,  the  two  principals  invariably  kiss 
fervently,  according  to  the  peculiar  Italian  custom, 
and  go  home  with  their  arms  around  each  other's 
necks.  In  Kentucky,  I  venture  to  say,  a  man  who 
had  been  struck  viciously  over  the  head  with  the 
major  portion  of  a  Heppel white  hatrack  would  brood 
over  his  wrongs  so  persistently  that  the  person  who 
had  done  the  striking  would  soon  require  the  un- 
divided attention  of  a  skilled  mortuary  expert.  In 
Albania,  an  intriguing  country,  a  man  who  had  been 
smitten  by  any  sort  of  instrument,  blunt  or  other- 
wise, would  go  ramping  ferociously  up  and  down  and 
around  the  mountains  of  Albania  with  a  knife  be- 
tween his  teeth  and  his  finger  trembling  tremulously 
on  the  trigger  of  his  rifle  until  he  had  located  the 
smiter  and  perforated  him  from  so  many  angles 
that  all  of  the  four  winds  of  heaven  could  blow 
through  him  without  hindrance,  no  matter  how  he 
was  left  lying.  Never  would  a  Kentuckian  or  an 
Albanian  devote  any  of  his  precious  moments  to 
kissing  a  person  who  had  made  a  pass  at  him  with 
an  angular  table  leg  or  sought  to  introduce  a  No.  $ 
carving  knife  between  his  waistline  and  his  floating 
ribs.  He  might  so  far  cool  off  as  to  rest  content 
with  kicking  him,  but  never  with  kissing  him! 

239 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

But  in  Italy  a  grievance  is  soon  forgiven  and  for- 
gotten. Blows  are  quickly  followed  by  embraces. 
Two  strong  men  who  at  one  moment  have  been 
attempting  to  cut  each  other  to  shreds  will,  five 
minutes  later,  be  raising  blisters  on  each  other's 
cheeks  by  the  violence  of  their  kisses.  This  is  known 
as  the  Italian  temperament,  and  the  Italian  tem- 
perament is  too  often  disregarded  when  the  Italy 
of  to-day  is  under  discussion. 

In  adjacent  countries  they  are  predicting  terrible 
things  for  Italy.  The  industrial  north,  say  the  wise- 
acres, is  on  the  verge  of  going  Bolshevik  and  estab- 
lishing a  Soviet  form  of  government.  Sicily  and  the 
southern  provinces,  they  say,  are  on  the  verge  of 
separating  from  the  mother  country  and  setting  up 
a  republic.  The  Communist  leader  in  Vienna  as- 
sured me  early  in  1920  that  he  expected  Italy  to  go 
Bolshevik  in  the  near  future,  and  that  when  Italy 
went  Austria  would  also  go.  On  the  day  before  I 
left  Austria  for  Italy  a  keen  observer  of  events  in- 
formed me  in  hushed  tones  and  with  ominous  head- 
shakes  that  things  in  Italy  were  very  bad — very  bad ! 
Workingmen  were  taking  over  the  factories ;  the  King 
was  to  be  fired  by  the  Socialists;  the  great  Italian 
boot,  hanging  down  into  the  Mediterranean,  was 
vibrating  so  violently  with  evil  forces  that  it  was 
expected  to  kick  itself  into  a  complete  wreck  at 
almost  any  moment. 

I  came  over  the  mountains  into  Italy,  expecting  to 
see  a  series  of  highly  entertaining  riots  and  trust- 
fully believing  that  there  would  be  lots  of  thrilling 
things  to  write  about.  I  came  through  Venice  and 
Bologna,  where  the  sausage  comes  from,  and  Pistoja, 

240 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

where  pistols  were  invented,  and  down  to  Rome, 
and  the  only  thing  that  looked  like  a  riot  was  a  some- 
what heated  argument  between  two  Venetian  gondola 
chauffeurs  as  to  the  hotel  which  would  be  most 
pleasing  to  my  captious  American  taste.  One  of 
them  insisted  passionately  that  the  Grand  was  the 
best,  and  the  other  held  out  noisily  for  the  Royal 
Danielle,  but  after  they  had  argued  for  five  minutes 
I  went  back  to  the  train  and  departed,  for  the  train 
didn't  stay  long  enough  to  permit  me  to  go  to  any 
hotel  at  all. 

As  for  thrilling  things  to  write  about  on  that 
trip  down  to  Rome,  there  were  no  shooting  frays  or 
machine-gun  actions  or  anything  of  that  sort,  but 
there  were  things  which  were  equally  thrilling  to 
people  who  had  been  making  extended  sojourns  in 
Central  Europe.  There  was,  for  example,  a  rich 
yellow  Italian  cheese  on  sale  at  all  railway  stations, 
and  genuine  milk  chocolate,  and  sausages  heavily 
larded  with  fat — delicacies  which  can  only  be  prop- 
erly appreciated  by  persons  who  have  been  eating 
the  fatless  foods  of  Central  Europe  for  a  few  weeks 
or  months.  And  the  Italian  trains,  instead  of  being 
three  or  eight  or  eighteen  hours  late,  were  actually 
on  time.  The  customs  officials  were  polite.  Every- 
thing was  strangely  thrilling.  Conditions  in  Italy 
may  be  very  bad — very  bad!  as  the  keen  observers 
in  adjacent  countries  like  to  observe  in  such  melan- 
choly tones,  but  by  comparison  with  conditions  in 
Central  Europe,  Italian  conditions  are  little  short  of 
heavenly. 

That  is  to  say,  they  are  little  short  of  heavenly 
if  one  is  lucky  enough  to  dodge  the  strikes  which 

241 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

exist  in  such  profusion  in  Italy  at  the  present  time. 
In  fact,  the  strike  crop  in  Italy  just  now  is  surpassed 
only  by  the  grape  crop,  the  onion  crop,  the  flea  crop, 
and  the  Roman  ruin  crop.  The  Italian  laborer  is 
just  beginning  to  grasp  the  deep,  soul-stirring  joy 
which  lies  in  striking  and  making  everyone,  including 
himself,  excessively  uncomfortable.  It  is  the  Italian 
temperament  asserting  itself.  The  Italian  tempera- 
ment has  always  objected  strongly  to  doing  things 
in  the  regular,  legal,  commonplace  way.  It  is  the 
Italian  nature  to  be  against  the  government  and 
everything  in  power — possibly  because  so  many 
Italian  governments  in  the  past  have  been  so  very, 
very  bad,  not  to  say  rotten.  This  fact  is  recognized 
by  the  Italians  themselves  as  a  national  characteris- 
tic, similar  to  the  liking  for  blue  golf  pants  on  the 
part  of  the  Montenegrins  and  to  the  affinity  between 
Frenchmen  and  snails. 

Rome  once  had  a  mayor  named  Nathan  who  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  putting  iron  baskets  in  the  park, 
surmounted  by  signs  requesting  the  care-free  Italian 
populace  to  throw  paper  in  the  baskets  instead  of 
on  the  grass.  The  baskets  always  went  empty,  how- 
ever, for  every  Italian  who  read  the  signs  promptly 
threw  all  his  papers  everywhere  but  in  the  baskets. 

With  the  advent  of  spring  the  Italian  government 
ordered  that  all  clocks  be  set  back  an  hour  so  that 
the  people  might  have  the  advantage  of  an  extra 
hour  of  daylight.  The  new  time  was  always  des- 
ignated "the  legal  hour."  In  Italy,  as  in  other 
countries,  a  large  number  of  boneheads  didn't  care 
for  the  legal  hour,  so  they  made  a  frightful  uproar 
and  organized  strikes  against  it.     The  street-railway 

242 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

employees,  for  example,  were  striking  against  the 
legal  hour.  I  asked  one  of  them  his  reasons.  "The 
new  hour,"  said  he,  "makes  it  necessary  for  us  to 
get  up  too  early  in  the  morning.  Everything  is 
foggy  and  dark."  I  reminded  him  that  the  new 
hour  saved  coal  for  the  nation  and  gave  him  an 
extra  hour  of  daylight  when  his  work  was  done. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "but  it  is  too  foggy  and  dark  when 
we  get  up." 

"Our  mistake,"  declared  Premier  Nitti,  "was  in 
calling  it  'the  legal  hoiir.'  We  should  have  known 
that  no  true  Italian  would  have  endured  it.  We 
should  have  called  it  'the  illegal  hour.'  Then  every 
Italian  would  have  been  unanimously  in  favor  of  it." 

The  Italian  farmer  has  always  blamed  his  rulers 
for  imdesirable  climatic  conditions.  "  It  is  raining ! ' ' 
he  says.     "  Thief  of  a  government ! " 

In  strikes  the  Italians  have  found  a  wonderful 
medium  through  which  to  express  their  distaste  for 
law  and  order.  Somebody  is  striking  somewhere 
at  all  hours  of  the  day  and  night.  The  reasons  for 
the  strikes  are  often  shrouded  in  the  darkest  mys- 
tery. Too  frequently  the  strikers  themselves  haven't 
the  slightest  idea  why  they  are  striking,  yet  they 
strike  with  a  cheerfulness  and  abandon  that  would 
arouse  a  thrill  of  admiration  in  the  breast  of  the  most 
mercenary  walking  delegate. 

If  one  happens  to  run  into  a  series  of  Italian  strikes, 
conditions  do  not  impress  one  as  being  particularly 
heavenly.  One  is  impressed  in  quite  the  opposite 
way,  in  fact, 

I  left  Belgrade  early  in  May  on  one  of  the  few  good 
trains  now  existing  on  the  continent  of  Europe — 

243 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

the  Orient-Simplon  Express.  This  train  starts  from 
Bukharest  in  Rumania,  runs  across  Jugoslavia  and 
Italy,  through  the  Simplon  tunnel  into  Switzerland, 
and  across  France  to  Paris.  It  is  made  up  of 
sleeping  cars,  which  are  known  as  wagon-lits  in 
Europe,  and  a  dining  car.  The  train  got  safely 
across  Jugoslavia  and  rolled  gently  into  the  Italian 
city  of  Trieste  early  in  the  morning,  just  as  the 
passengers  were  liixuriously  thinking  about  getting 
up  slowly  and  comfortably.  Their  luxurious  thoughts, 
however,  were  rudely  shattered  by  an  unhealthy- 
looking  man  in  a  railway  official's  uniform  who 
capered  up  and  down  the  platform  gleefully  and 
ordered  all  the  passengers  to  descend.  The  train, 
he  declared  with  an  offensive  smirk,  would  go  no 
farther  because  the  wagon-lit  employees  were  strik- 
ing. The  passengers  would  kindly  use  expedition 
in  descending. 

The  passengers  poured  out  like  angry  hornets,  de- 
manding frantically  to  be  told  what  the  wagon-lit 
people  were  striking  for.  The  official  did  not  know. 
Neither  did  the  wagon-lit  employees.  Not  knowing 
what  the  strike  was  about,  they  were  incapable  of 
forming  a  trustworthy  opinion  on  when  it  would  be 
over.  Most  of  the  passengers,  not  expecting  to  get 
off  the  train  in  Italy,  had  no  ItaHan  money  with 
which  to  buy  food.  Those  who  ventured  into  the 
streets  of  Trieste  discovered  that  all  of  the  shops 
were  closed  as  tight  as  drums.  They  had  been 
closed  for  more  than  a  week  because  the  employees 
were  striking.  They  were  striking  for  70  per  cent 
of  the  net  profits  of  the  businesses,  in  addition  to 
their   salaries.     The   shopkeeper   was   to   have   30 

244 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

per  cent  of  what  he  made.  The  other  70  per  cent 
was  to  be  divided  among  his  employees. 

The  passengers  from  the  Orient-Simplon  Express 
crowded  into  the  first  train  going  in  the  general  di- 
rection of  Paris.  Some  of  them  squeezed  into  second- 
class  coaches,  and  a  few  into  third-class  coaches. 
They  were  unanimous  in  saying  that  they  would 
endure  anything  to  get  out  of  Italy.  The  railway 
officials  assured  them  that  it  was  a  through  train. 
It  would  eventually  get  them  to  Paris,  they  were 
told.  They  rode  all  day.  Early  in  the  evening  the 
train  came  to  Milan.  Here  another  railway  official 
walked  up  and  down  beside  the  train  and  informed 
the  passengers  that  the  train  would  go  no  farther. 
The  striking  wagon-lit  employees  had  requested  the 
railway  to  stop  the  train,  and  the  railway  had 
graciously  consented.  Everyone  would  therefore 
kindly  descend,  using  speed. 

Everyone  descended,  using  more  profanity  than 
speed.  The  hotels  of  Milan  were  congested,  so  that 
many  of  the  passengers  slept  on  the  floor  of  the 
station,  which,  like  all  Italian  stations  and  every 
other  variety  of  Italian  building,  was  heavily 
populated  by  fleas.  Those  who  went  out  to  hunt 
for  food  were  met  by  the  glad  tidings  that  the 
restaurant  employees  of  Milan  were  striking.  Why 
were  they  striking?  Well,  they  were  striking  be- 
cause the  restaurant  proprietors  were  making  all 
the  money.  This  was  not  fair.  The  employees 
should  receive  25  per  cent  of  the  net  profits.  A 
little  knot  of  restaurant  employees  told  me  all  about 
it.  I  asked  them  a  question.  Suppose  the  restau- 
rant proprietor  lost  money.     Were  they  willing  to 

245 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

pay  25  per  cent  of  his  losses?  They  regarded  me 
with  contempt.  A  restaurant  proprietor,  they  as- 
sured me,  did  not  lose  money.  But  suppose  he  did, 
I  insisted.  They  talked  very  loudly  and  waved 
their  hands  in  my  face  after  the  Italian  manner. 
Here  was  something  that  I  was  to  get  firmly  fixed 
in  my  head.  A  restaurant  proprietor  did  not  lose 
money.  He  made  money.  What  was  the  use  of 
talking  about  a  restaurant  proprietor  who  lost 
money?  Certainly  they  wouldn't  pay  25  per  cent 
of  his  losses,  because  there  wouldn't  be  any  losses. 
Was  I  crazy,  that  I  asked  such  a  question,  or  what 
was  the  matter  with  me?  A  gray-clad  policeman 
with  a  business-like  revolver  at  his  belt  strolled  care- 
lessly in  our  direction  at  this  moment.  I  therefore 
strolled  carelessly  up  an  alley  and  went  away;  for 
the  Italian  policeman  has  a  habit  of  agitatedly  get- 
ting out  his  revolver  and  shooting  it  off  in  a  loose 
and  uncontrolled  manner  when  confronted  by  a 
crowd  or  any  gathering  of  people  which  looks  like  a 
crowd  or  which  can  be  stretched  by  a  nimble  imagi- 
nation into  a  crowd. 

There  is  one  thing  for  which  the  Italians  will 
probably  never  have  to  strike.  I  refer  to  poUcemen. 
Wherever  one  turns,  especially  in  these  days  of 
strikes,  he  finds  a  policeman  looking  at  him  in  an 
intent  and  embarrassing  manner.  These  are  a  new 
sort  of  police,  all  taken  from  the  army  and  all  carry- 
ing a  mean-looking  revolver,  ostentatiously  dis- 
played. Whenever  a  strike  is  on,  they  stroll  around 
in  pairs  in  close  proximity  to  everything  and  every- 
body that  has  anything  to  do  with  the  strike,  and 
whenever   there   is   any   untoward   disturbance   or 

246 


ALMOST   SUNNY  ITALY 

gathering  they  unlimber  their  revolvers  and  shoot 
them  wildly  in  all  directions.  If  the  gathering  or 
disturbance  is  not  quieted  by  this  demonstration, 
they  suddenly  begin  to  shoot  with  less  wildness  but 
more  frequency.  There  are  a  great  many  strikes  in 
Italy,  but  because  of  the  lavishness  with  which  the 
Italian  police  do  their  policing  Italian  strikes  gener- 
ally end  as  pure  and  unadulterated  strikes,  instead 
of  as  battles  royal,  as  they  so  frequently  do  in 
America  and  other  countries  which  are  supposed  to 
be  in  far  better  condition  than  Italy.  There  are 
thirty  thousand  Royal  Guards,  as  the  new  police 
are  called,  and  it  is  expected  that  there  will  be 
fifty  thousand  of  them  before  long.  With  fifty 
thousand  of  these  heavily  revolvered  persons  stroll- 
ing observantly  through  the  highways  and  byways 
of  Italy,  it  is  expected  that  the  keen  delights  of 
striking  will  soon  begin  to  pall  on  even  the  most 
enthusiastic  Italian  strikers. 

But  as  things  stand  to-day,  an  Italian  must 
strike  in  order  to  be  in  vogue.  Striking  is  all  the 
rage  in  Italy,  just  as  it  is  all  the  rage  for  Italian 
tailors  to  construct  a  pair  of  trousers  in  such  a  man- 
ner that  the  waistline  is  located  close  up  under  the 
armpits,  instead  of  down  around  the  waist  where 
Nature,  in  her  superior  wisdom,  planned  it.  Sep- 
arate strikes  have  been  negotiated  by  the  street 
sweepers,  the  railway  employees,  the  post  and 
telegraph  employees,  the  garbage  collectors,  the 
cooks,  the  cab  drivers,  the  hotel  and  restaurant 
waiters,  the  street-railway  employees,  the  excava- 
tors of  Roman  ruins,  the  butchers,  the  confectioners, 
the  ironworkers,  the  barbers,  the  field  workers,  the 

247 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

tailors'  assistants,  and  various  other  classes  of 
toilers.  There  have  also  been  a  number  of  general 
strikes  in  which  everybody  has  quit  work  for  vary- 
ing lengths  of  time.  General  strikes  are  usually  de- 
clared in  order  to  show  sympathy  for  somebody — 
not  to  get  definite  results.  Having  shown  their 
sympathy  by  a  general  strike,  the  strikers  go  back 
to  work,  and  the  person  or  persons  for  whom  they 
have  shown  their  sympathy  get  sympathy  only — 
and  it  is  difficult  nowadays  to  become  excessively 
obese  on  sympathy  alone. 

For  example,  late  last  March  the  workmen  in  a 
big  Naples  factory  sent  a  delegation  to  the  manager 
and  demanded  a  wage  increase  of  loo  per  cent. 
They  also  demanded  an  immediate  reply.  The 
manager  pointed  out  that  he  could  not  give  an 
immediate  reply  until  he  had  consulted  with  the 
owners.  One  of  the  workmen  thereupon  shot  him. 
Then  the  workmen  took  over  the  factory,  locked  up 
the  office  employees,  and  announced  that  they  were 
going  to  run  the  factory  themselves.  This  news  was 
conveyed  to  the  police,  who  found  themselves  unable 
to  approve  of  the  suddenness  with  which  the  work- 
men had  acted.  They  therefore  came  running  down 
to  the  factory  with  their  revolvers  held  nervously 
and  loosely  in  their  hands.  The  workmen  gathered 
on  the  factory  roof  and  tossed  a  number  of  bricks 
on  the  heads  of  the  policemen,  in  addition  to  firing 
at  them  freely  with  revolvers.  The  police  gayly 
returned  the  fire,  and  when  the  tumult  and  the 
shooting  died  several  of  the  strikers  were  also  found 
to  have  become  thoroughly  dead.  The  police  then 
broke  into  the  factory,  released  the  wounded  man- 

248 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

ager  and  the  office  employees,  and  arrested  the  lead- 
ing strikers,  who  were  prominent  SociaUsts.  On  the 
following  day  all  Naples  was  tied  up  in  a  general 
strike  to  show  sympathy  for  the  imprisoned  Social- 
ists. The  general  strike  lasted  for  twenty -four  hours. 
At  the  end  of  that  time  everybody  went  back  to 
work.  The  imprisoned  ones,  however,  remained  in 
prison — greatly  heartened,  no  doubt,  by  the  general 
sympathy  extended  to  them. 

During  the  same  month  all  the  waiters  in  Naples 
struck,  their  grievance  being  that  the  restaurants 
added  lo  per  cent  to  the  bills  for  service  and  then 
failed  to  give  the  lo  per  cent  to  the  waiters  who  had 
done  the  serving.  The  whole  affair  eventually  came 
down  to  just  one  restaurant  proprietor  who  was  pig- 
headed and  didn't  want  to  give  in.  The  striking 
waiters  were  busily  engaged  one  day  in  a  demon- 
stration against  the  pig-headed  proprietor  when  a 
detachment  of  Royal  Guards  encountered  the  crowd 
and  began  to  shoot  off  their  revolvers  according  to 
custom.  Several  people  were  wounded,  and  on  the 
next  day  there  was  a  general  strike  as  a  protest 
against  everything.  It  lasted  only  a  day,  and  it 
accomplished  nothing — except  to  give  the  strikers 
a  warm  glow  of  pride  over  their  sympathetic  attitude. 

Railway  strikes  are  viewed  with  more  whole- 
hearted loathing  by  the  Italian  people  and  by 
tourists  than  any  other  variety  of  strike.  They 
occur  without  warning,  and  a  traveler  who  is  un- 
fortunate enough  to  be  overtaken  by  one  is  more 
than  likely  to  find  himself  dumped  down,  bag  and 
baggage,  in  the  middle  of  a  lot  of  picturesque  Italian 
scenery,  but  from  twenty  to  forty  miles  from  a 

249 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

hotel.  Until  the  strike  is  over  not  a  train  runs. 
When  I  crossed  northern  Italy  in  May  the  railroads 
were  just  recovering  from  a  strike  which  lasted  eight 
days,  during  which  time  not  a  wheel  turned. 

In  the  industrial  centers  of  northern  Italy — Turin, 
Milan,  and  Genoa — strikes  are  more  common  than 
in  the  south  because  of  the  large  numbers  of  Com- 
munists who  infest  these  cities.  Workingmen  in 
these  centers  are  constantly  on  the  verge  of  taking 
over  factories  in  order  to  run  them  for  their  own 
benefit,  and  the  government  is  constantly  teetering 
around  nervously  in  an  attempt  to  guess  the  exact 
moment  when  it  must  take  over  the  factories  itself 
in  order  to  forestall  the  Communists. 

Nor  is  the  agricultural  south  without  its  troubles. 
In  the  south  the  land  is  held  in  great  part  by  large 
landowners.  The  peasants,  keenly  desiring  their 
own  land,  have  banded  together  and  marched  on  the 
large  estates,  dividing  them  into  convenient  plots 
and  starting  to  work  the  plots  themselves.  The 
landowners  register  an  ear-splitting  howl  of  protest, 
whereat  the  carabinieri,  or  rural  police,  march  against 
the  excited  peasants,  kill  a  few  of  them,  and  eject 
the  remainder  from  their  newly  acquired  fields. 
There  is  guerrilla  warfare  for  a  few  days ;  all  the  land- 
workers  strike  with  great  heartiness.  Sympathy  is 
shown  by  a  general  strike.  Matters  calm  down — 
and  then  the  whole  thing  starts  over  again  when 
another  crowd  of  peasants  get  together  and  occupy 
the  estates  of  several  large  landowners.  This 
sort  of  activity  provides  the  principal  form  of  re- 
laxation for  the  natives  of  the  province  of  Lecce, 
which  takes  in  the  heel  of  the  ItaHan  boot. 

250 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

After  noting  a  few  samples  of  the  labor  difficulties 
which  obtain  throughout  Italy,  the  casual  observer 
is  inclined  to  throw  up  his  hands  and  urge  that  Italy 
be  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world  by  a  high 
reinforced  concrete  fence  so  that  its  Bolshevistic 
inhabitants  cannot  get  out  and  contaminate  anybody 
else.  They  are  not  new  symptoms  for  Italy,  how- 
ever. She  has  suffered  from  the  same  pernicious 
sort  of  seven-year  itch  before,  and  has  staggered 
through  with  flying  colors.  For  three  years  after  the 
end  of  the  war  between  Austria  and  Italy  in  1866 
the  laborers  used  to  riot  and  wreck  shops  and  ap- 
propriate other  people's  goods  to  their  own  use.  In 
1898  there  were  bread  riots  in  Italy  which  threw  any 
Italian  riots  of  1919-20  into  the  deep  shade.  At 
various  cities,  and  notably  at  Milan — always  a  hot- 
bed of  Socialism — the  movement  developed  into  a 
regular  revolution,  with  the  Socialists  aligned  against 
the  government.  The  government  was  obliged  to 
proclaim  a  state  of  siege  at  Florence,  Leghorn, 
Naples,  and  Milan,  and  the  mob  at  one  time  became 
so  ferocious  that  the  commanding  general  opened  on 
it  with  his  artillery,  killing  upward  of  ninety  persons 
and  wounding  several  hundred.  The  leaders  of  the 
Milan  mob  were  convicted  on  so  many  counts  that 
each  one  of  them  was  sentenced  to  several  centuries 
in  jail,  but  it  was  the  Italian  temperament,  and  in 
three  years'  time  everyone  was  out  of  jail  and 
the  erstwhile  opponents  were  kissing  one  another 
tenderly. 

As  far  back  as  1900  the  increase  in  the  number  of 
strikes  which  were  taking  place  in  Italy  caused  a 
large  amount  of  unfavorable  comment  among  people 
17  251 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

who  like  to  see  workmen  work  regularly.  "vSince 
1 901 , "  says  one  book  of  Italian  statistics,  * '  there  have 
been,  more  than  once,  general  strikes  at  Milan  and 
elsewhere,  and  one  in  the  autumn  of  1905  caused 
great  inconvenience  throughout  the  country  and  led 
to  no  effective  result."  The  conditions  which  exist 
in  Italy  to-day  are  very  similar  to  the  conditions 
which  have  existed  there,  off  and  on,  for  the  past 
few  centuries. 

As  in  many  other  parts  of  the  world,  unrest  and 
dissatisfaction  are  rampant  in  Italy.  Down  in 
Sicily,  last  spring,  the  Sicilians  showed  their  general 
dissatisfaction  by  holding  a  demonstration  against 
the  King  and  Queen  of  Italy.  The  King  and 
Queen  of  Italy  are  rulers  whose  democracy  is  about 
100  per  cent  pure.  They  are  as  simple  and  as  un- 
affected people  as  one  can  find.  The  King  has 
turned  his  great  estates  over  to  the  people;  he  has 
given  his  palaces  to  be  made  over  into  homes  for  old 
soldiers  and  hospitals  and  suchlike  things.  He 
lived  with  the  soldiers  in  the  trenches  during  the 
war.  The  Queen  goes  among  the  poor  people  and 
mothers  their  babies  and  talks  with  them  as  any 
next  door  neighbor  would  talk.  They  are  the  real 
thing  in  democracy.  So  the  Sicilians  hold  demon- 
strations. Why?  Because  the  King  and  Queen 
are  too  democratic.  Yes,  unrest  and  dissatisfaction 
are  rampant  in  Italy.  Never  a  day  goes  by  without 
some  very  pronounced  ramping,  and  there  is  a 
strong  belief  in  many  quarters  that  the  all-European 
ramping  championship,  so  far  as  unrest  and  dissatis- 
faction are  concerned,  should  be  awarded  to  the 
Italian  people.     Rampant  as  these  things  are,  how- 

252 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

ever,  the  percentage  of  Italians  which  indulges  in 
them  is  not  more  than  lo  or  15.  The  bulk  of  the 
Italian  people  own  little  pieces  of  ground  or  little 
shops.  They  have  a  little  money  in  the  bank,  and 
they  are  not  tampers  by  nature.  If  unrest  and  dis- 
satisfaction are  rampant,  the  ramping  must  be 
carried  on  without  their  assistance.  They  would 
no  more  join  in  a  revolutionary  movement  than  they 
would  entertain  the  notion  of  jumping  into  the  crater 
of  Mount  Vesuvius  in  order  to  keep  warm  during  the 
heated  term.  They  may  be  parties  to  the  general 
unrest  and  dissatisfaction,  but  they  are  deeply  averse 
to  any  change  in  the  government.  They  are  averse 
to  it  because  it  is  a  matter  of  common  knowledge 
among  Italian  peasants  that  a  change  in  government 
means  increased  taxes,  and  they  have  about  as  much 
desire  for  increased  taxes  as  they  have  for  a  cholera 
epidemic  or  for  prohibition.  The  Italian  peasant 
and  agriculturist,  who  makes  up  from  80  to  90 
per  cent  of  the  population  of  Italy,  has  a  deep  and 
sincere  craving  to  be  let  alone.  This  craving  amounts 
almost  to  a  passion.  The  famous  Garibaldi,  who 
was  a  great  hand  to  raise  forces  for  the  purpose  of 
freeing  Italy,  said  that  he  never  had  any  peasants 
among  his  volunteers.  They  wanted  no  change  in 
government:  it  would  bring  them  nothing  but 
increased  taxes.  So  the  revolutionary  movement 
which  is  pestering  Italy  just  now  will  never  be  sup- 
ported by  a  large  percentage  of  the  Italians.  The 
chief  support  comes  from  the  loud-mouthed,  easily 
influenced,  hard-boiled  workmen  in  the  industrial 
centers — the  people  who  haven't  any  stake  in  the 
country — the  men  who  didn't  fight  during  the  war, 

253 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

but  who  stayed  at  home  and  received  higher  wages 
than  they  had  ever  before  dreamed  of  receiving  in 
their  Hves.  These  folk  are  particularly  dissatisfied. 
They  don't  want  anybody  to  get  more  money  than 
they  get.  They  want  everything  in  sight  and  a 
little  more  beside.  By  way  of  expressing  their  dis- 
satisfaction they  have  voted  the  Socialist  ticket  with 
great  vigor  and  unanimity,  though  many  of  them 
have  not  joined  the  Socialist  party.  In  Italy  there 
are  some  38,000,000  people.  The  Socialist  party 
only  claims  to  have  about  120,000  men  regularly 
inscribed  on  its  membership  rolls,  but  among  the 
120,000  it  has  a  great  number  of  paid  agitators — 
propagandisti,  they  are  called — who  are  constantly 
speaking  at  meetings,  presiding  over  them,  writing 
newspaper  articles,  and  distributing  Socialistic  doc- 
trines among  the  dissatisfied  workmen. 

In  spite,  however,  of  having  only  120,000  recog- 
nized members,  the  Socialist  party  recently  elected 
156  Socialist  Deputies  to  the  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
which  has  a  total  membership  of  508.  The  highest 
number  of  Deputies  which  the  Socialists  had  elected 
prior  to  the  last  election  was  40,  Relics  of  that  last 
election  may  be  seen  to-day  on  fences  and  on  the 
walls  of  buildings  from  the  north  of  Italy  down  to 
the  south.  "Vive  Lenin!"  read  signs  which  in- 
dustrious Socialistic  hands  have  applied:  "Vote  for 
Lenin!  Vote  for  the  SociaUst  party!  A  vote  for 
the  Socialist  party  is  a  vote  for  Lenin!  Lenin,  the 
greatest  man  in  the  world !  Hurrah  for  the  Soviets ! 
Hurrah  for  Soviet  Russia!  Vote  for  Lenin  and  the 
Soviets!"  The  Socialists  in  Italy  and  all  over 
Europe  are  working  overtime  to-day  at  the  con- 

254 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

genial  task  of  press-agenting  Lenin.  They  have  now 
reached  a  stage  where  Lenin  is  represented  as  a 
combination  of  Napoleon,  Saint  Anthony,  the  Angel 
Gabriel,  George  Washington,  Augustus  Cassar,  and 
the  man  who  struck  Billy  Patterson.  In  fact,  they 
go  even  farther.  Many  of  the  Socialists  declare 
that  Lenin  is  far  more  worthy  of  respect  and  adora- 
tion than  the  Trinity. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies  in  Rome,  with  its  156 
Socialist  members,  is  an  interesting  study  for  a  person 
who  wants  to  see  how  Socialist  representatives  com- 
port themselves  when  elevated  to  a  position  of 
trust  and  responsibility.  It  is  also  an  interesting 
study  for  a  person  who  likes  excitement  of  a  rather 
coarse  type  and  doesn't  know  where  to  go  to  see  a 
prize  fight.  I  visited  the  Chamber  on  March  24, 
1920.  It  was  a  dull  day,  as  days  go  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies  now  that  the  Socialists  have  returned  so 
many  members.  There  were  only  three  fights,  and 
in  none  of  them  was  there  a  knockout.  The  Italian 
newspapers,  on  the  following  day,  passed  over  the 
proceedings  with  small  headlines  and  scant  remark. 
I  am  forced  to  conclude  that  no  session  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies  would  be  considered  worthy 
of  particular  notice  by  the  Italian  newspapers  unless 
a  couple  of  Deputies  tore  each  other  to  pieces  with 
their  bare  hands  and  unless  at  least  nine  others  burst 
blood  vessels  from  screaming  curses  at  one  another, 
so  that  the  walls  were  messed  up  in  a  noteworthy 
manner. 

The  building  in  which  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  is 
housed  is  guarded  by  a  heavy  cordon  of  military 
police  with  loaded  revolvers.     At  each  doorway  of 

25s 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

the  building  are  soldiers  in  steel  trench  helmets  and 
with  bayonets  fixed  on  their  rifles.  Soldiers  sim- 
ilarly armed  are  scattered  all  through  the  building. 
The  exact  reason  for  the  large  number  of  soldiers 
cannot  be  discovered.  They  are  either  there  to 
keep  outsiders  from  getting  in  and  hurting  the 
Deputies  or  to  keep  the  Deputies  from  getting  out 
and  hurting  the  populace  or  to  keep  the  Deputies 
from  one  another  and  wrecking  the  building.  The 
first  theory  is  reasonable,  for  the  Deputies  make  such 
disgraceful  exhibitions  of  themselves  that  the  citi- 
zens might  be  excused  for  wishing  to  exterminate 
them.  The  second  theory  is  equally  tenable,  for  the 
Deputies — especially  the  Socialist  Deputies- — act 
more  like  wild  beasts  than  humans,  and  anybody 
who  watched  them  at  work  for  a  while  would  be 
quite  justified  in  climbing  a  tree  whenever  he  saw 
one  of  them  approaching.  The  third  theory  is  the 
weakest,  for  the  Deputies  are  constantly  getting  at 
one  another,  and  seem  always  to  be  on  the  verge 
of  tearing  the  building  to  pieces,  yet  the  soldiers 
make  no  move  to  restrain  them. 

The  Chamber  of  Deputies  resembled  our  own 
House  of  Representatives.  Orlando,  the  President 
of  the  Chamber,  sat  at  a  high  desk  facing  the  semi- 
circular tiers  of  benches.  Beneath  him  were  the 
desks  for  the  Cabinet  Ministers,  with  Nitti,  the 
Prime  Minister,  in  the  center.  Each  of  these  princi- 
pal desks  was  furnished  lightly  but  attractively  with 
a  bottle  of  claret,  a  bottle  of  water,  a  dish  of  sugar, 
a  goblet,  and  a  spoon.  The  President's  desk,  in 
addition,  boasted  a  dinner  bell.  The  President  rang 
the  dinner  bell  between  speeches  and  also  when  the 

256 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

Socialists  waxed  too  obstreperous,  so  that  he  spent 
practically  all  his  time  ringing  it.  At  every  third 
or  fourth  ring  the  Cabinet  Ministers  would  pour  slugs 
of  claret  into  their  goblets,  add  a  little  sugar  and 
water,  stir  vigorously,  and  suck  it  up  slowly  amid 
the  hoarse,  angry,  and  thirsty  cries  of  Socialist 
Deputies.  The  privilege  of  drinking  sweetened 
claret  and  water  during  sessions  of  the  Chamber 
seems  to  be  one  of  the  few  benefits  which  accrue 
to  the  position  of  Cabinet  Minister  in  Italy. 

All  of  the  Socialist  members  of  the  Chamber  oc- 
cupied the  benches  at  the  extreme  left  of  the  semi- 
circular tiers.  This  is  the  reason  why  Socialists  are 
known  as  the  Left.  There  seems  to  be  an  opinion 
in  many  circles  that  the  Socialists  are  called  the  Left 
because  they  will,  to  use  a  cant  phrase,  be  left  if 
they  insist  on  pursuing  their  present  tactics — left 
holding  the  sack,  as  it  were.  The  same  people 
have  an  idea  that  the  Communists  and  the  Bolshe- 
viks are  known  as  the  Extreme  Left  because  they 
will  be  left,  in  a  manner  of  speaking,  even  more 
extremely  than  the  Socialists  if  they  keep  on  at 
their  present  gait.  This  idea  is  erroneous.  In 
Europe  the  Socialists  always  sit  on  the  left-hand 
side  of  the  representative  bodies,  and  the  extreme 
Socialists  always  sit  on  the  extreme  left.  Hence,  as 
the  coarser  elements  of  the  late  American  army  were 
wont  to  observe,  the  Pyramids  of  Egypt. 

The  left-hand  section  of  the  Chamber,  then,  was 
filled.  Every  seat  was  taken  by  an  ardent  Socialist. 
A  great  many  of  these  Socialist  Deputies,  I  feel 
obHged  to  record,  were  about  as  hard-looking  speci- 
mens as  one  could  encounter  in  the  less  aristocratic 

257 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

American  jails.  Some  were  greatly  in  need  of 
shaves,  and  others  seemed  to  be  laboring  under  the 
misapprehension  that  the  laundry  workers  of  the 
nation  had  been  striking  for  several  months.  It  is 
quite  conceivable  that  a  man  may  be  utterly  slack 
in  the  matter  of  personal  cleanliness  and  neatness, 
and  still  be  a  person  of  great  mental  powers,  but, 
as  a  rule,  the  man  whose  thoughts  are  orderly  and 
clean  finds  it  impossible  to  be  anything  but  orderly 
and  clean  in  dress  and  person.  To  put  it  bluntly, 
a  large  number  of  the  Socialist  Deputies  appeared  to 
be  extremely  messy,  both  bodily  and  mentally. 

The  middle  section  of  the  Chamber,  occupied  by 
members  of  the  so-called  Catholic  party,  was  not 
packed  as  solidly  as  the  left,  but  it  was  very  well 
filled.  The  right-hand  section,  in  which  the  con- 
servative element  was  located,  harbored  a  pitiful 
handful  of  venerable  gentlemen  who  seemed  to  be 
busy  at  some  such  irrelevant  tasks  as  posting  their 
diaries  or  writing  letters  to  neglected  relatives. 

The  desks  of  all  the  Deputies  were  barren  of  loose 
articles.  There  were  no  unattached  inkwells  or 
books  or  fittings  of  any  sort.  Everything  was 
screwed  down  tightly.  The  walls  of  the  Chamber 
are  embellished  with  some  very  beautiful  mural 
decorations.  The  oaths  and  the  blows  which  the 
Deputies  exchange  with  such  fluency  have  no  effect 
on  these  paintings,  but  if  156  rabid  Socialists 
should  start  to  throw  inkwells  wildly  at  their  political 
enemies — as  they  would  do  a  hundred  times  a  day 
if  there  were  any  inkwells  to  throw — the  mural  deco- 
rations would  soon  look  as  though  a  herd  of  mules 
had  been  running  up  and  down  them.     So  the  desks 

2q8 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

of  the  Chamber  were  unencumbered  by  inkwells 
or  other  throwable  objects. 

I  have  attended  a  number  of  prize  fights  where  the 
spectators  became  violently  excited  and  displayed 
their  excitement  by  howls,  yells,  and  interchanges 
of  blows,  but  never  have  I  witnessed  a  prize  fight 
at  which  the  spectators  lost  control  of  themselves 
to  the  extent  that  the  Socialists  lost  control  of 
themselves  at  this  humdrum  session  of  the  Italian 
Chamber  of  Deputies. 

The  first  speaker  of  this  particular  session  was 
Modigliani,  a  Socialist  leader.  He  was  a  fat  man 
with  a  tremendous  black  beard  and  spectacles  which 
made  him  look  like  a  huge,  overfed  owl.  His  speech 
was  a  demand  that  newspapers  be  forced  to  reveal 
the  sources  from  which  they  received  their  financial 
support.  His  gestures  were  passionate  in  the  ex- 
treme and  his  words  aroused  his  Socialist  brethren 
to  a  high  pitch  of  enthusiasm.  Repeatedly  they 
would  burst  into  wild,  ear-piercing  shrieks  of  ap- 
proval and  into  storms  of  applause.  The  center  of 
the  Chamber,  however,  took  no  pleasure  in  his 
address.  They  shouted  at  him  angrily,  and  waves 
of  hisses  interrupted  him.  A  man  in  the  center  rose 
to  his  feet  and  shrieked  at  him  ferociously.  Modig- 
liani shrieked  back.  The  Chamber  was  in  an  up- 
roar, with  every  member  shouting  in  concert.  The 
faint  tinkle  of  the  President's  bell,  as  he  jangled  it 
frantically  for  order,  went  unheeded.  Modigliani, 
frothing  at  the  mouth  with  excitement,  finished  his 
speech  by  pounding  on  his  desk  with  both  fists  and 
howling  like  a  wild  man.  He  fell  into  his  seat  with 
Qvery  sign  of  physical  exhaustion,  while  his  friwds 

?5Q 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

rushed  to  him,  patted  his  arms  and  back,  and  kissed 
him  affectionately.  The  sympathies  of  the  gallery 
were  evenly  divided,  the  hisses  and  the  applause 
being  equally  violent. 

The  second  speaker  was  an  inoffensive-looking 
member  of  the  Catholic  party — a  tall,  droopy  gray 
man  with  a  surprised-looking  gray  pompadour  and 
a  long,  droopy  gray  mustache.  He  got  along  fa- 
mously— for  a  little  under  three  minutes.  Then  he 
said  something  that  the  Socialists  didn't  like,  and 
they  started  in  on  him.  They  jeered  and  wailed 
mournfully.  He  made  little  futile  flapping  motions 
with  his  hands  and  tried  to  go  on.  The  jeers  and 
wails  increased  in  volume.  He  tried  to  make  him- 
self heard  above  the  din,  whereat  the  Chamber  be- 
came a  bedlam.  He  stood  for  over  five  minutes 
trying  to  make  himself  heard,  and  during  all  that 
time  the  Socialists  kept  up  their  deafening  tumult. 
Finally  he  sat  down,  and  the  Chamber  gradually 
became  quiet  again. 

One  of  the  Deputies  addressed  a  question  to  Nitti, 
the  Prime  Minister.  Something  about  Nitti 's  reply 
incensed  a  Socialist,  and  he  objected  in  strident  tones. 
Nitti  attempted  to  proceed,  but  the  Socialists  bawled 
and  booed  and  shouted  and  hooted  so  that  he  was 
forced  to  stop. 

By  this  time  Modigliani  had  recovered  from  the 
exhaustion  brought  about  by  his  first  speech.  Rising 
to  his  feet  with  an  impassioned  gesture,  he  began  to 
speak  again.  His  opening  words  offended  a  mail 
in  the  center,  who  at  once  leaped  up  wildly  and 
called  ModigHani  a  liar.  One  of  Modigliani's  friends, 
maddened  by  this  attack,  rushed  to  ModigUani's  side 

260 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

and  hurled  bitter  oirses  at  the  attacker.  Every 
Deputy  leaped  to  his  feet,  roaring  and  bellowing. 
Orlando,  President  of  the  Chamber,  mixed  in  the 
fracas  and  bitterly  condemned  the  Catholic  party 
for  causing  the  disturbance.  The  howl  that  went 
up  was  as  deep  and  deafening  as  that  which  rises 
from  a  cheering  section  at  a  football  game  after  a 
successful  play.  The  Socialists  jeered  at  the  Catho- 
lics. They  "yahed"  them  and  "booed"  them  and 
made  offensive,  suggestive  noises  indicative  of  their 
contempt  for  them.  They  gave  them  the  rude 
ItaUan  raspberry.  The  Catholics  roared  in  anger, 
vowing  that  Orlando  never  called  the  Socialists 
to  order,  though  they  were  the  greatest  offenders. 
The  air  was  full  of  hands.  Everyone  was  gesturing 
wildly. 

A  CathoHc  rose  and  began  to  answer  Modigliani, 
though  Modigliani  had  not  yet  finished.  The 
Socialists  hooted  him  from  the  moment  he  started, 
directing  all  sorts  of  offensive  noises  and  yells  at 
him.  The  noise  was  so  loud  and  continuous  that 
people  in  the  galleries  who  wished  to  speak  to  one 
another  had  to  shout  at  the  top  of  their  lungs. 
One  of  the  Socialists  was  particularly  offensive  in 
his  shouts  and  gestures.  Several  Catholics  put 
their  heads  together  and  shouted,  "Oil!  Oil!"  at 
him.  The  allusion  was  to  the  fact  that  this  par- 
ticular Socialist  had  been  accused  of  profiteering  in 
oil  during  the  war.  Trembling  and  white  with 
rage,  the  SociaHst  rushed  up  the  aisle  and  toward 
the  men  who  had  shouted  "Oil."  He  was  caught 
and  held  by  other  Socialists.  Foaming  at  the 
mouth,   he  screamed  insults   and  epithets  at  the 

261 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Catholics.  When  those  who  were  holding  him 
loosed  their  holds,  he  leaped  on  the  desks  and 
started  jumping  across  them  to  get  at  his  enemies. 
He  was  caught  and  pulled  down.  A  friend  leaped 
up  and  attempted  to  get  across  the  desks  and  into 
physical  contact  with  those  who  had  shouted 
"Oil."  He,  too,  had  to  be  hauled  down  and  re- 
strained by  force.  During  all  this  the  Chamber  was 
in  a  tumult  of  howls  and  yells  and  hisses.  Deputies 
were  shaking  their  fists  at  high  heaven.  Two  or 
three  were  weeping.  A  score  seemed  to  be  on  the 
verge  of  having  epileptic  fits. 

At  this  point  Orlando  went  into  action.  He 
shrieked  and  yelled  and  banged  on  his  desk  with 
his  fist  and  almost  crawled  on  top  of  his  desk  in  his 
rage.  He  beat  his  desk  with  his  Httle  dinner  bell 
and  jumped  up  and  down  and  tore  at  his  hair.  The 
whole  affair  was  disgraceful,  he  screamed.  It  was 
impossible  to  proceed  under  existing  conditions! 
What  was  the  use  of  a  Chamber  of  Deputies  that 
devoted  all  its  time  to  fighting  instead  of  to  depping ! 
The  Socialists  were  behaving  in  an  intolerable 
manner ! 

Modigliani  bitterly  resented  these  words.  He 
burst  into  screams  of  anguish.  Such  was  the 
energy  with  which  he  spoke  that  his  cheeks,  his  fists, 
his  beard,  his  arms,  his  legs,  and  his  stomach  were  all 
of  a  quiver.  The  Catholics  received  his  words  with  a 
tumult  of  howls.  They  groaned  and  hissed  so  that 
the  groans  and  hisses  of  the  mob  scene  in  "Julius 
Caesar"  would  have  sounded  like  the  murmur  of  a 
soft  west  wind  among  the  willows  by  comparison. 
They  shook  their  clenched  fists  and  clutched  their 

262 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

heads  in  anguish  at  the  insolence  of  the  Socialists. 
A  Socialist  rose  to  his  feet,  howled  his  anger  toward 
the  center,  and  then  suddenly  turned,  raced  up  the 
aisle  at  top  speed,  and  tore  across  the  passageway 
behind  the  desks,  with  the  evident  intention  of  killing 
as  many  Catholics  as  possible  before  being  over- 
powered. Deputies  rushed  back  to  intercept  him. 
The  Ministers,  the  Deputies,  and  the  gallery  were  on 
their  feet,  screaming  with  excitement.  The  noise 
was  deafening.  A  bell  rang.  It  was  six  o'clock — 
time  for  an  hour's  intermission  so  that  the  Deputies 
could  go  over  to  Aragno's  and  have  a  cup  of  choco- 
late. The  tumult  ceased.  The  Deputies  jostled 
toward  the  exists  in  apparent  amity.  .  ,  .  Can  you, 
as  the  saying  goes,  beat  it? 

It  is  the  Italian  temperament  at  work.  Let  five 
hundred  Americans  work  themselves  up  to  the  same 
pitch  of  antagonism  and  excitement  that  the  five 
hundred  Italian  Deputies  had  achieved,  and  a  goodly 
percentage  of  the  Americans  would  have  celebrated 
the  end  of  their  perfect  day  in  the  hospital — and 
they'd  have  gone  in  ambulances.  But  the  Italians 
went  to  Aragno's  for  chocolate,  and  they  walked. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  talk  in  Europe  and 
America  concerning  the  hatred  which  the  Italians 
have  for  Americans,  and  also  concerning  the  un- 
pleasant experiences  which  American  travelers  in 
Italy  have  suffered  because  of  this  hatred.  Several 
Americans  in  various  parts  of  Italy  took  great  pains 
to  acquaint  me  with  the  brutal  treatment  which 
they  had  received  from  Italian  customs  inspectors, 
passport  officials,  and  railway  employees  because 
they    were    "damned    Americans."    A    prominent 

263 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

American  business  man  on  his  way  from  Vienna  to 
Constantinople  with  several  secretaries  and  relatives, 
told  me  that  he  had  been  grossly  insulted  by  the 
Italians  when  he  crossed  the  frontier  late  in  April: 
he  had  been  told,  he  said,  that  the  Americans  had 
tried  to  run  Italy  long  enough;  the  railway  officials 
refused  to  give  him  lights  in  his  railway  coach,  say- 
ing that  the  "damned  Americans"  could  sit  in  the 
dark;  they  had  refused  for  a  long  time  to  accept 
American  money  for  railway  tickets,  but  had 
finally  taken  it  at  a  rate  of  exchange  which  was 
very  unfavorable  to  the  Americans. 

This  is  doubtless  all  true,  but  since  many  Amer- 
icans are  contemplating  a  trip  to  Italy  in  the  near 
future,  I  feel  impelled  to  offer  my  own  experiences  as 
a  balance  to  those  who  complain  so  loudly  of  their 
treatment  in  Italy.  I  went  through  the  Italian  cus- 
toms and  passport  officials  in  the  north,  traveled 
down  to  Rome  and  Naples,  making  protracted  stops 
in  both  cities,  and  crossed  the  peninsula  in  the  south 
to  Foggia  and  Bari  on  the  Adriatic.  I  went  through 
the  customs  and  passport  officials  again  at  Bari 
when  I  left  Italy  to  go  into  the  Balkans.  I  re- 
entered Italy  again  at  Trieste,  left  it  once  more  to 
go  into  Jugoslavia,  came  back  again  from  Jugo- 
slavia, traveled  across  the  north  of  Italy,  and  passed 
the  frontier  into  Switzerland.  Every  crossing  of  a 
frontier  meant  still  another  bout  with  customs  and 
passport  officials.  Never  did  I  encounter  anything 
except  the  utmost  courtesy  and  consideration.  No- 
body insulted  me;  nobody  made  any  disparaging 
remarks  about  Americans;  nobody  pried  into  my 
baggage ;  nobody  detained  me ;  nobody  searched  m$ 

264 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

for  concealed  money,  in  spite  of  the  constant  as- 
surances which  I  had  received  that  such  would  be 
the  case.  I  was  traveling  as  any  American  tourist 
would  travel,  without  special  letters  from  any 
Italian  officials,  without  a  uniform,  and  with  a 
regulation  passport.  My  experience  was  not  un- 
usual; for  I  met  many  other  Americans  who  had 
invariably  received  the  same  uniformly  courteous 
treatment  from  Italians.  I  have  sometimes,  it  is 
true,  been  obliged  to  change  money  on  trains  and  on 
steamships,  and  in  all  cases  I  have  been  unmercifully 
stung.  The  Italians  have  no  monopoly  on  that 
particular  form  of  highway  robbery;  for  the  stinging 
of  travelers  who  are  caught  short  on  money  is  one 
of  the  most  popular  indoor  and  outdoor  sports  in 
Europe.  If  one  needs  to  change  American  money 
into  EngHsh  money  on  an  ocean  liner  he  will  be  given 
about  one  third  less  than  he  would  receive  on  shore. 
But  it  will  be  his  own  fault ;  for  he  should  have  got 
English  money  before  getting  on  the  boat.  French 
money  is  used  on  all  the  big  continental  expresses 
which  run  out  of  Paris.  If,  on  one  of  these  trains, 
one  needs  to  change  American  into  French  money, 
he  will  lose  30  per  cent  on  the  transaction.  But  it's 
his  own  fault  again ;  for  he  should  have  come  heeled 
with  French  money.  The  American  who  com- 
plained so  bitterly  about  the  sickening  manner  in 
which  he  was  forced  to  accept  an  unfavorable  rate 
of  exchange  for  American  dollars  when  coming  from 
Austria  into  Italy  should  have  provided  himself 
with  plenty  of  Italian  money  before  he  left  Austria. 
Not  to  do  so  was  a  guaranty  that  he  would  be  sub- 
jected to  many  inconveniences,  delays,  and  annoy- 

265 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

ances.  Let  us,  for  a  moment,  use  our  imaginations 
and  allow  our  minds  to  dwell  on  the  plight  in  which 
an  Italian  would  find  himself  if  he  should  rush  up 
to  the  ticket  office  in  Niagara  Falls,  New  York,  and 
demand  tickets  for  four  or  five  persons  to  Chicago 
when  he  had  nothing  but  Italian  money  on  his  per- 
son and  could  speak  no  language  but  Italian.  I 
venture  to  affirm  that  he  would  find  himself  out  of 
luck.  I  will  go  even  farther  than  that:  it  is  my 
belief  that  when  the  ticket  agent  had  finished  with 
him  and  had  summoned  the  police,  the  Italian  would 
be  strongly  of  the  opinion  that  all  of  the  luck  in  the 
world  had  been  distributed  long  before  he  was  born. 
I  am  therefore  forced  to  the  following  conclusions, 
which  will  prove  highly  offensive  to  the  Americans 
who  have  been  badly  treated  in  Italy:  the  person 
who  retains  his  temper  at  all  times,  uses  the  brain 
with  which  he  was  provided  by  an  all-wise  Provi- 
dence, and  permits  an  occasional  smile  to  lighten  his 
features  when  conversing  with  railway,  customs,  and 
passport  officials  will  have  few  troubles  in  Italy. 
An  obtuse  or  grumpy  official,  when  presented  with 
the  Italian  equivalent  for  a  half  dollar,  will  almost 
break  a  leg  in  order  to  be  helpful.  An  American 
who  can't  understand  Italian,  and  who  becomes 
peevish  because  Italians  cannot  understand  him, 
even  when  he  shouts  at  them  at  the  top  of  his 
lungs,  will  probably  have  cause  to  complain  of  con- 
temptuous treatment  at  the  hands  of  the  Italians. 
You  see,  the  Italians  are  pretty  well  satisfied  that 
they  won  the  war.  That  being  the  case,  they  don't 
feel  that  there  is  any  crying  need  for  them  to  take 
backwater  from  Enghshmen,  Frenchmen,  or  Amer- 

266 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

icans,  either.  I  am  willing,  however,  to  bet  several 
hundred  Austrian  crowns,  or  even  as  much  as  three 
dollars,  that  any  American  who  keeps  his  temper 
and  refrains  from  looking  as  though  he  had  recently 
had  word  of  the  death  of  a  bosom  friend  will  meet 
with  nothing  but  courtesy  in  Italy. 

The  frequently  mentioned  hatred  for  Americans 
which  is  supposed  to  exist  in  Italy  may  have  existed 
at  one  time,  but  it  is  nearly  as  nonexistent  to-day 
as  are  Eskimo  plover,  the  last  specimen  of  which  was 
found  in  1898.  It  is  an  unfortunate  fact  that  our 
late  allies  do  not  have  the  same  tender  regard  for  us 
which  they  had  during  the  latter  months  of  191 7. 
Italy  isn't  a  bit  more  anti-American  than  is  France 
or  England.  In  fact,  one  hears  far  more  anti- 
American  remarks  in  England  or  in  France  than 
he  does  in  Italy.  Where  the  American  nation  as  a 
whole  seems  to  pain  the  British  and  the  French, 
it  is  Mr.  Wilson  who  gives  the  Italians  a  series  of 
sharp,  shooting  twinges.  They  explain  carefully  to 
Americans  that  it  is  Mr.  Wilson  who  irks  them. 
They  want  it  distinctly  understood  that  with  them 
it  is  a  case  of  Wilson — that's  all.  The  more  tactful 
Italians  shake  their  heads  in  a  puzzled  manner  when 
his  name  comes  up.  It  is  such  a  pity,  they  say, 
that  Mr.  Wilson  should  have  become  so  sick.  The 
less  tactful  ones  are — well,  less  tactful.  They  cannot 
for  the  Hfe  of  them  understand  why  Mr.  Wilson  so 
persistently  upholds  the  claims  of  the  Slav  nations, 
and  so  persistently  refuses  to  consider  the  Italian 
claims.  Mr.  Wilson,  they  say,  sees  nothing  wrong 
in  permitting  the  Czechoslovaks  to  include  millions 
of  Germans  within  their  boundaries,  and  hundreds  of 
18  267 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

thousands  of  Magyars.  He  considers  it  all  right  for 
the  Jugoslavs  to  do  the  same  with  Germans  and 
Magyars.  Yet  he  protests  violently  against  the 
Italians  taking  a  few  thousand  Jugoslavs  in  the  same 
way.  This  is  all  the  more  incomprehensible  to  the 
Italians  because  the  Croats  and  the  Slovenes — 
which  are  the  peoples  that  the  Italians  refer  to  when 
they  speak  of  the  Jugoslavs — fought  bitterly  against 
the  Italians  on  the  side  of  Austria-Hungary  until 
the  armistice.  Why,  they  ask,  should  their  allies 
favor  their  enemies  rather  than  their  friends?  This 
is  the  Italian  viewpoint.  I  do  not  uphold  it;  I 
merely  state  it.  Very  few  disinterested  people  up- 
hold Italy's  viewpoint  as  regards  the  cities  and  terri- 
tory which  she  has  grabbed  along  the  Adriatic  coast, 
from  Fiume  down  to  southern  Albania. 

There  is  much  more  anti-French  sentiment  in 
Italy  than  there  is  anti-American  feeling.  The 
French,  say  the  Italians,  have  not  been  good  allies; 
they  have  not  stood  by  them.  Now  the  Germans, 
they  say,  have  always  been  true  to  their  allies: 
the  Germans  can  be  depended  on;  Germany  will 
soon  be  a  strong  nation  again.  All  through  Italy 
there  is  a  very  strong  pro-German  sentiment. 
"Dear  old  Germany!"  say  the  Italians  .  .  .  and, 
"dear  old  Russia!"  When  one  looks  into  this 
matter  he  gets  a  strong  whiff  of  that  odorous  mess 
known  as  European  politics.  France,  to  protect 
herself  against  a  possible  future  attack  on  the  part 
of  Germany,  is  coddling  and  pampering  Czecho- 
slovakia so  that  Czechoslovakia  may  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  give  Germany  a  brisk  kick  in  the  rear  if 
the  occasion  should  ever  demand  it.    Jugoslavia  and 

a68 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

Czechoslovakia  are  sister  states,  and  between  them 
there  are  strong  bonds  of  sympathy.  But  Italy  and 
Jugoslavia  are  at  swords'  points.  They  talk  con- 
stantly of  fighting.  France,  being  the  protector  of 
Czechoslovakia,  would  also  help  Jugoslavia  in  case 
she  fought  with  Italy.  Italy  would  need  help  against 
Jugoslavia,  and  since  she  can't  have  it  from  France, 
her  thoughts  are  dwelling  fondly  on  Germany,  her 
old  love.  The  ItaHan  temperament  also  enters  into 
the  question.  In  past  years  the  ItaHans  have  always 
been  against  the  nation  which  had  the  upper  hand 
in  Europe,  for  they  have  always  felt  that  Italy  was 
oppressed  by  the  nation  with  the  upper  hand. 
Either  they  considered  themselves  oppressed  by  the 
French  or  by  the  Austrians.  Just  now  France  has 
the  upper  hand.  Therefore  their  temperament 
obHges  them  to  be  anti-French. 

From  the  standpoint  of  the  tourist,  Italy  to-day 
isn't  much  different  from  the  Italy  of  before  the 
war.  The  food  is  good  and  there  is  plenty  of  it. 
Because  of  the  rate  of  exchange,  the  prices  of  many 
things  are  even  cheaper  for  Americans  than  they 
used  to  be.  Before  the  war  an  American  dollar  used 
to  be  worth  five  lire,  and  one  lira  was  equivalent — 
as  careful  figuring  will  demonstrate — to  twenty 
cents.  In  the  spring  of  1920  the  value  of  the  lira 
had  decHned  to  such  an  extent  that  an  American 
dollar  could  be  exchanged  for  twenty-four  of  them, 
so  that  the  lira  was  worth  approximately  four  cents. 
The  value  of  the  lira  moves  around  almost  as 
rapidly,  however,  as  the  tail  of  a  hound  dog  on  a 
hot  scent.  An  American  in  Rome  cabled  back  to 
America  on  April  6th  for  $1,000  to  be  sent  to  him  in 

269 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Naples.  The  American  bank  which  cabled  the 
money,  for  reasons  best  known  to  itself,  cabled  the 
equivalent  of  $i,ooo  in  lire.  On  April  14th  the 
American  was  notified  that  the  money  was  deposited 
to  his  credit  in  a  Naples  bank.  But  instead  of  $  i  ,000, 
the  American  found  that  he  had  20,000  lire,  and 
20,000  lire  was  worth  only  $849.  The  transaction, 
which  was  conducted  by  two  reputable  banks,  an- 
noyed him  to  such  an  extent  that  he  refused  to 
accept  the  money.  Unfortunately,  all  people  aren't 
in  a  position  to  refuse  to  accept  money  which  has 
so  dwindled  in  transit.  A  little  matter  of  $250,000 
is  sent  back  to  Italy  every  working  day  in  the  year 
by  Italian  immigrants  in  the  United  States.  This 
always  arrives  in  lire,  not  in  dollars,  and  the 
recipients  never  refuse  to  accept  it,  but  it  has  lost 
greatly  in  value  in  transit.  Speculation,  as  I  have 
said  before  and  as  I  take  great  pleasure  in  repeating, 
is  at  the  bottom  of  an  enormous  amount  of  the 
European  money  troubles.  The  banks  declare  that 
they  are  wholly  at  a  loss  for  a  remedy  which  will 
stop  this  speculation.  If  that  is  the  case,  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  assume  that  the  world's  bankers 
know  as  little  about  finance  as  does  the  Kamchatka 
blubber  eater  who  sells  a  dozen  sea-otter  skins  for 
two  tin  hunting  knives  and  a  gallon  of  Russian- 
distilled  prune  juice.  After  one  has  seen  the 
troubled  and  innocent  peoples  of  Europe  going 
through  hell,  starvation,  and  damnation  because 
the  value  of  their  money  has  fallen  away  to  a  point 
where  it  will  buy  them  no  food  and  no  clothing — 
where  it  will  keep  no  warmth  in  their  bodies  and  no 
decencies  in  their  lives — one  is  inclined  to  cast  large 

270 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

quantities  of  slurs  and  aspersions  on  persons  who 
have  devoted  their  lives  to  financial  matters,  but 
who  can  offer  no  solution  for  a  financial  problem 
which  is  enriching  them  but  ruining  millions. 

Compared  with  the  Central  European  nations, 
Italy's  finances  are  on  a  firm  footing,  but  they 
are  in  far  worse  shape  than  those  of  France  or  of 
England,  and  neither  France  nor  England  can 
afford  to  buy  from  America.  Italy  is  doing  most 
of  her  buying  at  the  present  time  in  Germany  and 
Austria.  The  stores  are  full  of  German  and 
Austrian  made  goods,  all  of  which  cost  from  five 
to  fifteen  times  as  much  as  they  cost  in  Berlin  or 
Vienna,  The  Italians  themselves  are  greatly  de- 
pressed by  the  increased  cost  of  living;  but  the 
increase  has  been  little  greater,  in  proportion,  than 
it  has  been  in  the  United  States.  In  this  connection 
I  was  asked  by  great  numbers  of  Italian-Americans 
who  had  returned  to  Italy  from  the  United  States 
to  send  a  message  to  all  Italians  in  America  who  are 
thinking  of  coming  back  to  Italy.  The  message 
was,  "Don't  come  back!"  The  Italian-Americans 
are  waiting  around  in  shoals  and  hoards  for  boats 
to  take  them  back  to  America.  They  are  bitterly 
cursing  the  day  when  they  decided  to  return  to 
Italy,  and  I  feel  obliged  to  pass  along  the  message  of 
warning  in  the  hope  that  a  few  good  Italian-Ameri- 
cans may  be  saved  from  the  heartburnings  and  the 
financial  losses  that  have  beaded  with  clammy  per- 
spiration the  brows  of  all  Italians  who  have  left 
America  for  Italy  since  the  end  of  the  war. 

American  tourists,  however,  feel  rather  opulent 
in  Italy.    At  an  excellent  but  quiet  hotel  in  Rome, 

271 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

for  example — a  hotel  that  has  sufficient  standing  to 
be  cluttered  up  constantly  with  principessas  and 
contessas  and  marchesas  and  what  not — one  may 
have  a  room  looking  out  on  the  palms  and  bamboos 
and  wistaria  and  roses  and  towering  cypresses  of 
the  Pincian  Gardens,  and  one  may  have  a  bathroom 
and  three  excellent  meals  a  day,  all  for  a  matter  of 
400  lire  a  week.  Four  hundred  lire  is — or  was  in 
April — equivalent  to  about  $20.  One  may  tumble 
into  one  of  the  open-faced  Italian  carriages  with  a 
taximeter  attachment,  drive  and  drive  and  drive 
for  hours  on  end,  hand  the  driver  double  the  amount 
registered  on  the  meter  as  required  by  law,  fight 
passionately  with  him  as  to  the  size  of  the  tip  which 
he  is  to  receive  as  wine  money,  compromise  with 
him  by  giving  him  all  that  he  demands,  and  still 
only  have  to  separate  one's  self  from  60  cents. 
That,  I  am  willing  to  take  oath,  is  considerably 
better  than  being  obliged  to  hand  $10  to  a 
taxi  thug  for  driving  one  from  a  Hoboken  steamship 
dock  to  the  Pennsylvania  Station,  as  I  was  forced 
to  do  on  May  23,  1920.  Ten  dollars  is  240  lire; 
it  is  3,300  kronen;  it  is  .  .  .  well,  it  is  certainly  what 
Artemus  Ward  would  have  catalogued  as  "2  mutch." 

A  suit  of  clothes,  made  by  a  first-class  Roman  or 
NeapoUtan  tailor  out  of  fine  English  cloth,  can  be 
had  for  as  little  as  600  lire,  or  $30,  or  for  as  much  as 
800  lire,  or  $40.  A  suit  made  from  the  same  sort 
of  cloth  by  an  American  tailor  would  cost  from 
$80  to  $150.  It  makes  one  indulge  in  extensive 
speculations  as  to  how  American  tailors  get  that 
way. 

The  Italians  are  afflicted  with  the  fascinating  be- 
272 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

lief  that  all  Americans  have  untold  wealth.  When 
an  American  asks  the  price  of  an  article  in  a  shop 
the  salesman  who  tells  him  usually  acts  in  an  off- 
hand way,  "But  that  is  practically  nothing  for  you 
Americans."  It  does  no  good  to  argue.  One  can 
become  hoarse  assuring  the  salesman  that  one's 
last  penny  will  probably  be  wrung  from  one  by  a 
heartless  landlord  within  a  week  after  one's  return 
to  America,  only  to  have  the  salesman  smile  pity- 
ingly and  skeptically.  Their  belief  in  the  limitless 
moneys  that  Americans  possess  is  confirmed  by  the 
manner  in  which  they  translate  lire  into  dollars. 
I  accompanied  an  American  on  a  suit-buying  ex- 
pedition. "How  much  would  this  be?"  he  asked, 
fingering  a  piece  of  cloth.  The  tailor  rolled  his  eyes 
toward  the  ceiling  and  made  a  hasty  computation. 
"One  hundred  and  sixty  dollars,"  he  finally  replied. 
"What!"  shrieked  the  American  in  a  shrill,  hor- 
rified voice.  "Yes,"  said  the  tailor,  firmly,  "one 
hundred  and  sixty  dollars — eight  hundred  lire." 
Before  the  war  800  lire  was  $160,  but  on  that  par- 
ticular day  it  was  $40.  The  Italian  shopkeepers 
who  speak  English  always  compute  comparative 
values  for  Americans  in  that  way,  and  confidently 
assume  that  an  American,  having  untold  millions, 
stands  ready  to  pay  $160  for  a  suit  of  clothes,  or  to 
disgorge  $70  or  $80  for  an  automobile  for  a  day. 
This  gives  rise  to  misunderstandings.  I  met  a  man 
who  was  in  a  tantrum  of  rage  because  he  claimed  the 
Italians  had  been  trying  to  steal  everything  but  his 
shirt.  He  bought  an  enormous  flask  of  red  wine 
for  7  Hre,  or  30  cents,  and  came  and  told  me  about  it, 
pausing  occasionally  to  weep  into  the  wine.     These 

273 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Italian  robbers,  he  said,  had  tried  to  charge  him 
1,500  lire  for  a  two-hundred-mile  automobile  trip. 
I  wept  with  him.  "Gracious  goodness!"  I  said, 
"  that's  seventy  dollars."  "  Ye-ah!"  he  said.  "That 
was  what  they  tried  to  nick  me  for."  Questioning 
revealed  the  fact  that  the  automobile  dealer  had 
given  him  the  price  in  dollars  instead  of  in  lire, 
and  that  the  American  had  been  so  incensed  that  he 
had  rushed  away  immediately  in  a  cloud  of  pro- 
fanity. We  went  back  to  the  dealer's  and  offered 
him  325  lire,  or  $16,  for  the  automobile  trip  which 
the  American  claimed  was  to  have  cost  1,500  lire. 
The  dealer  accepted  with  alacrity.  The  affair  was 
a  somewhat  complicated  one  to  grasp.  The  dealer 
had  originally  wished  to  charge  the  American  350 
lire  for  the  trip.  That,  on  a  pre-war  basis,  would 
have  been  $70.  So,  in  his  naive  Italian  manner,  he 
told  the  American  that  the  trip  would  cost  $70. 
The  American,  in  telling  me  the  story,  had  com- 
puted the  $70  into  lire  at  the  existing  rate  of  ex- 
change, and  had  got  1,500  lire — a  sum  which  the 
dealer  would  never  have  dared  to  ask,  for  to  him 
1,500  lire  would  have  meant  $300. 

The  tourist  will  find  little  or  no  change  in  Italy. 
He  will  find  the  same  old  vineyards,  with  vines 
trained  to  grow  between  low  trees  in  the  north 
and  high  trees  in  the  south,  and  he  will  find  the 
vineyards  producing  the  same  old  red  wine  that 
slides  down  the  throat  so  easily  and  so  harmlessly 
until  a  certain  point  is  reached,  after  which  it 
suddenly  inflames  the  mind  of  the  drinker  to  such 
an  extent  that  he  is  filled  with  a  longing  to  use  his 
stiletto  on  somebody  near  or  dear^to  him.    He  will 

274  " 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

find  the  same  old  guides  who  whisper  in  the  same  old 
thrilling  tones  that  Mount  Vesuvius  is  on  the  verge 
of  erupting  again  and  blowing  all  of  Italy  into  the 
middle  of  Kingdom  Come,  or  whose  information 
concerning  the  ancient  Romans  is  of  such  nature 
that  any  reputable  historian  who  hears  it  would 
burst  into  low  moans  of  anguish.  He  will  find  the 
same  peanut-sized  donkeys  staggering  around  under 
monumental  loads  and  protesting  against  their  lot 
in  life  with  all  the  noisy  bitterness  of  a  fire  whistle. 
He  will  find  the  same  old  dirt  and  the  same  old 
fleas  and  the  same  old  carriage  drivers  voicing  the 
same  old  anguish  at  whatever  reward  they  may 
receive  for  their  labors.  He  will  find  the  same  old 
expatriate  Americans  raising  the  same  old  plaints 
against  the  drab  and  mercenary  aspects  of  life  in 
America.  He  will  find  the  same  old  genuine  fifteenth- 
century  Italian  antiques  made,  inclusive  of  worm- 
holes,  in  Newark,  New  Jersey.  He  will  find  the 
same  old  Camorra  and  the  same  old  Mafia  and  the 
same  old  Evil  Eye  doing  business  at  the  same  old 
stands  at  which  they  were  doing  business  long 
before  Amerigo  Vespucci  went  into  the  exploring 
trade  and  decided  to  allow  his  name  to  be  used  as 
an  advertisement  for  the  continent  that  Columbus 
discovered.  He  will  find  the  same  gorgeous  scenery 
and  the  same  history-soaked  ruins  and  the  same 
whisky-soaked  near  counts  and  the  same  horrible 
odors  that  have  always  been  a  part  and  parcel  of 
Italy's  glory  and  that  will  always  be  a  part  of 
Italy's  glory  until  Vesuvius  lives  up  to  the  gloomy 
prophecies  of  the  guides  and  erupts  with  enough 
violence  to  spatter  Italy  all  over  the  Milky  Way, 

.^75 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

There  is  one  great  difference,  however,  which  will 
impress  the  tourist  deeply.     I  refer  to  the  Italian 
military  officer.     In  the  spring  of  1920,  what  with 
the  constant  talk  of  fights  with  the  Jugoslavs  and 
one  thing  and  another,   there  were  more  Italian 
officers  in  the  foreground  of  all  Italian  scenery  than 
there  were  Roman  ruins.     The  Italian  officer  is  a 
romantic  and  affecting  spectacle.     He  wears  a  long 
blue  cape  about  the  color  of  a  bluebird's  wing. 
It  contains  enough  cloth  to  make  pup  tents  for 
a  baseball  team,   and  the  Italian  officer  picks  up 
one  end  of  it  and  throws  it  up  over  his  shoulder 
so  that  he  is  a  big  light-blue  cocoon  with  his  shiny 
pomaded  black  head  sticking  out  at  the  top  and 
his  shiny  bespurred  black  boots  sticking  out  at  the 
bottom.     Some  of  the  younger  officers  have  gone 
back  to  school  and  college,  but  they  still  wear  their 
uniforms  and  their  beautiful  blue  capes.     Some  have 
gone  back  to  business  and  some  have  gone  back  to 
doing  nothing,  but  all  of  them  get  out  their  uniforms 
and  their  romantic  blue  capes  and  stride  around  in 
them  whenever  there  is  the  slightest  excuse  for  so 
doing,  while  the  impressionable  and  excitable  Italian 
maidens  press  their  hands  to  their  hearts  and  gasp 
in  admiration.     The  cold  and  reserved  tourist  who 
has  spent  his  life  in  the  restrained  atmosphere  of 
Oriskany,  New  York,  Mauch  Chunk,  Pennsylvania, 
or  Glen  Ridge,  New  Jersey,  is  held  spellbound  when 
he  sees  a  pair  of  these  wonderful  blue-caped  crea- 
tures walking   along   the   sidewalk  holding  hands, 
or  when  he  sees  two  of  them  meet  on  a  crowded 
street,  throw  their  arms  around  each  other,  and  kiss 
ardently — ^having  been  separated,  probably,  for  as 

276 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

much  as  four  hours.  The  Italian  temperament  is 
responsible  for  these  things,  and  the  more  stolid 
American  finds  it  difficult  to  grasp  the  Italian 
temperament.  That  is  why  undemonstrative  peo- 
ple from  northern  countries  must  be  heard  with  sus- 
picion when  they  declare  that  all  Italy  is  in  such  a 
ferment  that  it  is  about  to  explode. 

The  Italian  temperament  manifests  itself  in  many 
odd  and  fascinating  ways.  Practically  all  Italians, 
on  entering  into  conversation,  lose  control  of  their 
hands,  which  fly  around  in  a  loose  and  dangerous 
manner.  One  who  witnesses  a  discussion  between 
two  Italians  is  in  a  constant  state  of  nervousness  lest 
each  of  them  stick  several  fingers  into  the  other's 
eyes  and  suddenly  go  blind.  When  one  walks  the 
streets  of  any  city  of  southern  Italy  one  will  re- 
peatedly come  across  pairs  of  disputants  facing  each 
other  with  inflamed  and  contorted  faces,  shrieking  at 
the  top  of  their  lungs  and  shaking  their  hands  in 
each  other's  faces  with  such  violence  and  rapidity 
that  their  heads  seem  to  be  surrounded  by  a  heavy 
mist.  It  is  a  terrifying  spectacle.  One  feels  sure 
that  it  will  be  only  a  matter  of  seconds  before  both 
of  them  draw  murderous  knives  and  hack  each  other 
into  a  sort  of  Hungarian  goulash.  One  imagines 
that  one  is  being  accused  of  arson,  forgery,  and 
petit  larceny,  and  that  the  other  is  being  charged 
with  mayhem,  counterfeiting,  and  murder.  One 
contemplates  running  for  the  police  in  order  to  avert 
a  shocking  double  killing,  when  both  of  the  dis- 
putants suddenly  fall  silent  and  walk  away.  On 
questioning  bystanders,  one  learns  that  they  were 
merely  discussing  the  possibiHty  of  getting  a  little 

277 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

rain  within  the  week  or  comparing  notes  on  the  price 
of  olive  oil.  In  the  north  the  hands  are  usually 
kept  below  the  level  of  the  shoulders  and  the  fingers 
are  used  somewhat  sparingly.  A  speaker  starts  to 
emphasize  his  discourse  with  his  clenched  fist,  and 
every  time  he  makes  a  point  he  frees  one  finger. 
When  all  five  fingers  are  spread  out  he  clenches  his 
hand  and  starts  over  again.  In  the  south  the  hands 
seldom  descend  below  the  level  of  the  shoulder 
during  a  conversation.  Everything  is  stretched  out 
to  the  limit.  All  the  fingers  are  extended,  as  are 
the  arms,  eyes,  mouth,  and  voice. 

Italian  carriage  drivers  are  greatly  given  to  being 
temperamental.  It  is  traditional  with  Italian  car- 
riage drivers  that  they  must  never  be  satisfied  with 
the  amount  of  money  which  is  given  them  by 
foreigners.  Their  fathers  and  their  grandfathers 
and  their  great-grandfathers  were  never  satisfied 
with  the  tips  which  they  received  from  the  foreigners, 
so  it  is  a  matter  of  pride  with  them  to  be  dissatisfied 
also.  It  is  always  the  same  story.  On  descending 
from  the  carriage  the  foreigner  pays  his  fare  plus  a 
tip.  The  carriage  driver  looks  at  the  money  with 
loathing.  He  shrieks  aloud,  as  though  a  rusty 
poinard  had  been  plunged  into  his  vitals.  He 
clasps  his  brow  with  every  sign  of  mortal  anguish. 
If  an  insufficient  amount  of  attention  is  paid  to  him 
he  will  in  all  probability  descend  from  the  carriage 
and  follow  the  guilty  party  into  hotel,  theater,  or 
restaurant,  as  the  case  may  be,  howling  for  his 
rights  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  and  airing  all  grievances 
suffered  by  him  during  the  past  ten  years.  Three 
cents  will  calm  him,  but  if  he  isn't  calmed  he  will 

278 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

refuse  all  fares  for  hours  in  order  to  brood  over  his 
wrongs. 

Italian  shopkeepers  make  frequent  use  of  their 
temperament  in  order  to  shake  a  little  extra  money 
out  of  the  easily  cowed  foreigners.  Greatly  taken 
by  a  magnificent  pair  of  carved  wooden  cabinet 
doors,  genuine  fifteenth-century,  made  on  East 
Twenty-first  Street,  New  York,  a  foreigner  drops  into 
an  Italian  antique  shop  and  asks  the  price.  The 
dealer  proudly  replies  that  $200  takes  them.  The 
foreigner  says  coldly  that  he  only  wanted  two  doors, 
not  two  dozen.  He  thereupon  offers  $8  for  the 
doors.  The  dealer,  stung  by  this  insult,  almost 
breaks  down  and  cries.  That  pair  of  doors  would 
bring  $1,500  or  $2,000  in  New  York!  Why,  he 
himself  is  personally  acquainted  with  the  cousin  of 
the  man  who  got  them  from  the  Palazza  Lambusto. 
Notice  the  carving!  Notice  the  wormholes!  The 
worms  that  made  those  holes  were  the  most  highly 
bred  hole  makers  that  the  fifteenth  century  pro- 
duced !  Notice  the  manner  in  which  the  doors  were 
worn  by  countless  hands !  The  foreigner  replies  that 
he  sees  all  these  things,  and  understands  perfectly 
that  the  owners  of  the  doors  must  have  spent  their 
lives  opening  and  shutting  them  in  order  to  get 
them  so  thoroughly  worn.  He  then  offers  $20  for 
them.  Infuriated,  the  dealer  calls  on  Heaven  to 
witness  this  awful  wrong  that  is  being  done  him. 
He  himself  paid  $135  for  the  doors.  His  children 
are  clothed  in  rags  because  of  the  terrible  rate  of 
exchange.  His  little  baby  hasn't  had  a  drink  of 
milk  for  three  years,  and  his  wife  will  be  unable 
to  afford  a  new  hat  until  1950.    Yet  he  cannot  exist 

?79 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

without  doing  business,  so,  in  hopes  that  the  for- 
eigner will  bring  him  other  customers,  he  will 
sacrifice  the  doors  for  $120.  It  will  be  a  loss  for 
him,  it  will  almost  ruin  him,  but  he  will  do  it. 
Weakened  by  these  words,  the  foreigner  in  a  rash 
moment  says  that  he  will  pay  $50  for  the  doors. 
"Sold!"  shouts  the  dealer,  briskly,  and  he  calls  for 
his  assistant  to  come  and  wrap  them  up.  .  .  . 

No,  the  Italians  haven't  changed  much.  They 
still  retain  all  their  bizarre  superstitions,  for  example. 
Whenever  an  Italian  has  a  dream  he  gets  out  his 
dream  book  and  finds  out  what  his  dream  means  in 
terms  of  figures,  and  then  he  scrapes  up  all  the 
money  in  the  house  and  runs  out  and  plays  those 
figures  in  the  lottery.  If  he  dreams  that  rare  old 
dream  about  wandering  into  a  ballroom  in  his 
pajamas  he  doesn't  mention  the  dream  to  his 
friends  for  the  sake  of  making  conversation.  Not 
he!  He  gets  his  dream  book  out  from  under  his 
pillow,  finds  that  the  abstruse  calculations  of  the 
dream  experts  have  identified  ballroom  with  the 
number  28  and  pajamas  with  the  number  3.  So  he 
plays  number  28  and  number  3  in  the  week's  lottery; 
and  if  he  doesn't  win  he  feels  positive  that  somebody 
with  the  evil  eye  looked  at  him  and  gummed  up  his 
chances.  Somehow  or  other  these  things  don't 
sound  just  right  to  us  intellectual  Americans  who 
prefer  the  more  practical  ouija  board  to  such  puerile 
fancies  as  dream  books.  But  you  can't  make  an 
Italian  believe  that  there's  anything  wrong  in  his 
system.  It's  all  foolishness,  of  course,  to  think  that 
dream  books  and  certain  dates  and  people's  ages  and 
suchlike  truck  can  have  any  connection  with  lot- 

280 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

tery  .  .  .  the  Messina  earthquake  occurred  on  the 
twenty-eighth  day  of  the  month;  thousands  of 
ItaHans  selected  the  number  28  on  which  to  put 
their  money  in  that  week's  lottery.  The  number  28 
turned  up,  and  a  stated  amount  had  to  be  paid  to 
each  one  of  the  thousands  that  had  chosen  to  bet 
on  28.  The  government  almost  went  broke.  But 
of  course  there's  nothing  in  any  of  that  stuff,  as 
ouija-board  devotees  can  tell  you. 

The  evil  eye  still  goes  big  in  all  parts  of  Italy. 
A  man  who  has  the  evil  eye,  if  recognized,  can  get 
no  service  in  restaurants,  no  rooms  in  hotels,  no 
carriage  to  drive  in.  Strong  men  drive  hurriedly 
up  alleys  to  escape  him.  The  mere  mention  of  his 
name  is  sufficient  to  make  sensitive  Italians  leave  the 
room  in  an  uncontrollable  fit  of  shudders.  This 
makes  it  nice  for  Italians  who  have  a  grudge  against 
somebody.  All  they  need  to  do  is  to  spread  the 
report  that  the  hated  one  has  the  evil  eye.  Italians 
are  rarely  skeptical  about  such  a  statement.  If  they 
are,  however,  and  demand  proof,  it  is  only  necessary 
to  connect  the  accused  person  with  a  minor  disaster. 
"How  do  I  know?"  whispers  the  accuser.  "Don't 
you  remember  the  big  banquet  last  March  when  the 
glass  chandelier  fell  on  the  banquet  table  and  upset 
all  the  wine?  Well,  he  was  present  ...  it  was  his 
fault.  .  .  .  The  eye,  you  know!"  That's  enough. 
Nothing  else  is  necessary.  The  fact  that  there  were 
ninety-nine  other  persons  at  the  banquet  doesn't 
for  a  minute  lead  anyone  to  think  that  the  dropping 
of  the  chandelier  was  due  to  anything  or  anyone 
except  the  man  with  the  evil  eye. 

We  in  America  can't  understand  all  these  things. 
281 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

We  can't  understand  why  the  Italian  people,  with 
all  their  reputed  love  for  the  beautiful,  should  be  so 
contented  amid  such  a  tremendous  amount  of  dirt. 
Until  the  horticulturists  become  more  active  every 
rose  will  continue  to  have  its  thorn.  The  chief 
thorns  in  Italy's  beauty  are  her  filth  and  her  evil 
odors.  Possibly  these  things,  like  the  fleas,  don't 
bother  the  natives.  But  for  foreigners  they  exist 
in  large,  staggering  quantities.  I  mention  these 
things,  not  in  the  spirit  of  carping  criticism,  but 
merely  in  order  to  show  that  it's  the  same  old  Italy. 

Great  fleas  have  little  fleas  upon  their  backs  to  bite  'em, 
And  little  fleas  have  lesser  fleas,  and  so  ad  infinitum. 

sang  some  well-known  singer  in  the  long  ago.  If  his 
statement  is  correct,  the  number  of  lesser  Italian 
fleas  that  bite  the  little  Italian  fleas  that  bite  the 
great  Italian  fleas  must  stagger  the  most  vivid 
imagination.  Italy  is  a  large  country,  and  to  go 
from  the  bottom  of  it  to  the  top  takes  a  matter  of 
two  days.  Yet  there  is  no  hotel  and  no  palace  and 
no  restaurant  and  no  train  and  no  railway  station 
in  all  that  large  country  that  cannot  and  does  not, 
at  a  moment's  notice,  provide  fleas  for  the  foreigner 
who  may  step  into  them  in  a  flealess  state.  At  a 
formal  dinner  in  Rome  one  evening  I  watched  a  flea 
crawl  out  of  the  opening  in  the  shirt  bosom  of  the 
host  at  a  spot  about  opposite  the  lowest  stud.  Fol- 
lowed by  the  fascinated  stares  of  all  the  guests  on 
my  side  of  the  table,  the  flea  marched  sedately  up 
the  glistening  expanse  of  shirt  bosom  and  disap- 
peared from  sight  again  beneath  the  host's  immacur 

282 


ALMOST  SUNNY  ITALY 

late  tie.  I  spoke  with  him  at  a  more  appropriate 
moment  on  the  subject  of  fleas.  "You  get  accus- 
tomed to  them,"  he  said.  *T  haven't  felt  a  flea  on 
me  for  years."  I  asked  him  whether  he  hadn't  felt 
one  that  evening.  He  shook  his  head  in  a  surprised 
manner.  "I  haven't  felt  a  trace  of  one,"  said  he, 
"and  I'd  feel  them  very  quickly  in  this  suit,  because 
it's  tight."  So  the  natives  are  probably  correct 
when  they  claim  that  the  fleas  don't  bother  them, 
but  for  foreigners  life  in  Italy  is  just  one  darned 
itch  after  another.  A  medical  friend  of  mine  carried 
a  bottle  of  chloroform  around  with  him.  Whenever 
he  felt  a  flea  at  work  he'd  uncork  the  bottle  and 
pour  a  few  drops  on  the  spot  where  the  flea  was 
lunching,  whereupon  the  flea  would  pass  out  tem- 
porarily and  the  sufferer  could  retrieve  it  and 
destroy  it  at  leisure.  This  system  worked  marvel- 
ously  until  my  friend  visited  the  city  of  Bari  over 
on  the  Adriatic  coast.  Bari  is  a  hot,  dusty  city, 
and  the  dust  is  white  and  glaring  and  the  fleas  are 
large  and  black  and  plentiful  and  very  quick  to 
jump  up  out  of  the  hot,  white  dust  and  onto  the 
cool  bodies  of  the  foreigners.  When  my  friend 
reached  Bari  he  had  to  keep  pouring  and  pouring 
and  pouring  the  chloroform  into  his  clothes.  In 
order  to  keep  pace  with  the  fleas  he  poured  on  so 
much  that  he  chloroformed  himself.  The  hotel 
proprietor  found  him  unconscious  and  called  in  five 
doctors  in  the  belief  that  he  was  dying.  As  a  result 
of  the  treatment  he  received  my  friend  was  sick 
for  a  week  and  he  had  to  pay  the  doctors  $37. 
Now  he  lets  them  bite. 

A  lot  of  people  are  waving  their  arms  around 
19  283 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

and  saying  despondently  that  it  isn't  the  same  old 
Italy.  But  I  can  promise  those  who  go  there  that 
they  will  find  the  same  old  ruins,  and  the  same  old 
moon  shining  down  on  the  same  old  canals  of 
Venice,  and  the  same  old  Italian  temperament,  and 
the  same  old  smells,  and  the  same  old  fleas  .  .  .  and 
what  more  does  a  tourist  want  for  his  money, 
anyway? 


VI 

THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

WHEN  authors  and  orators  and  other  thought- 
ful persons  begin  to  probe  round  for  the  soul 
of  Paris,  as  they  so  frequently  do,  they  are  apt  to 
become  a  trifle  maudlin.  "Paris,"  they  declare, 
making  a  sweeping  gesture  with  the  right  hand 
and  dashing  a  shining  tear  from  the  left  eye — "Paris 
smiles — and  forgets!"  That  is  one  of  the  favorite 
remarks  about  Paris.     She  smiles — and  forgets. 

I  suppose  the  authors  and  orators  know  what  it 
is  that  she  forgets,  but  I  don't.  It  seems  to  me  that 
Paris  remembers  everything  that  she  ever  knew. 
She  smiles — ah  oui!  as  they  say  in  Paris  and  its 
environs.  Ah  oui!  She  smiles,  and  in  spite  of  her 
smiles  she  remembers  all  things.  She  remembers  all 
about  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  whiff  of  grape- 
shot  that  left  the  scars  on  the  front  of  the  Church 
of  St.  Roch,  and  the  proper  way  to  serve  bceuf  d  la 
mode,  and  the  method  of  making  the  front  of  a  dress 
stay  up  when  it  has  neither  back  nor  shoulder  straps 
to  support  it.  She  remembers  the  Emperor  Julian, 
who  was  the  first  booster  for  Paris  away  back  in 
the  year  350  or  thereabout,  and  she  recalls  the  only 
true  method  of  cooking  the  large  and  succulent  snail 

285 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

which  fattens  on  the  vine  leaves  of  Burgundy.  She 
remembers,  too,  the  Gennans,  and  how  they  planned 
to  take  Paris  and  make  a  large  and  unsightly 
mess  of  it.  Ah  out!  She  remembers  the  Germans. 
Paris  smiles,  pirouettes  slightly,  and  exudes  a  whiff 
of  intriguing  perfume,  thus  elevating  the  spirits  of 
the  beholder,  but  anybody  who  thinks  that  the 
airiness  of  her  behavior  means  that  she  has  forgotten 
anything  has  several  thinks  coming  to  him. 

That  neat  phrase  anent  Paris  smiling  was  invented 
by  a  Roman  general  about  three  weeks  after  the  city 
was  named.  Long  years  ago  there  was  nothing  to 
Paris  except  an  island  in  the  Seine.  The  Parisii, 
a  temperamental  but  lovable  tribe  of  people  who 
lived  on  the  island,  used  to  do  practically  nothing 
in  the  winter  except  stand  round  the  edges  of  the 
island  and  watch  the  water  rise,  just  as  so  many  of 
them  have  done  every  winter  since  then.  In  the 
spring  and  summer  and  autumn  they  devoted  them- 
selves to  fighting,  occasionally  varying  the  monotony 
by  selling  bead  bags  to  foreigners  or  by  trying  to 
catch  fish  from  the  Seine,  though  there  have  been 
no  fish  in  the  Seine  since  the  post-Pliocene  period. 
That  was  long  ago,  but  the  activities  of  the  early 
Parisii  will  strike  familiar  chords  in  the  breasts  of 
those  who  have  encountered  the  more  modem 
Parisians.  The  Germans  who  have  encountered 
them  will  find  something  vaguely  reminiscent  in  the 
reference  to  their  fighting.  Julius  Caesar  con- 
quered the  early  residents  of  Paris,  but  that  was 
probably  because  they  only  fought  in  the  spring, 
summer,  and  autumn.  In  later  days  they  have 
also  taken  to  fighting  in  the  winter  when  the  occa- 

286 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

sion  demands  it,  and  this  fact  has  been  particularly 
impressed  on  the  Germans  at  one  time  and  another 
during  recent  years.  In  the  early  days  of  the  Roman 
occupation  of  the  island  they  called  the  island  Lute- 
tia.  They  built  palaces  on  it,  and  their  friends  used 
to  come  up  from  Rome  to  visit  them  and  buy  bead 
bags  and  laugh  at  the  idea  of  the  natives  trying  to 
catch  fish  in  the  Seine.  Later  the  Romans  changed 
the  name  of  the  island  to  Parisea  Civitas,  and  almost 
immediately  abbreviated  the  name  to  Paris. 

About  three  weeks  after  this  change  occurred,  as 
I  started  to  say  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  para- 
graph, a  Roman  general  came  back  to  Paris  from 
London,  where  he  had  been  living  for  weeks  on 
boiled  meat  and  boiled  potatoes  and  boiled  carrots 
and  boiled  fish  and  suet  pudding.  The  time  was 
winter,  and  he  had  had  no  heat  in  his  London  lodg- 
ings. The  weather,  moreover,  had  been  cold  and 
rainy  and  foggy,  and  whenever  he  went  outdoors  he 
got  his  feet  wet.  It  had  been  a  most  depressing 
sojourn.  The  crossing,  moreover,  had  been  ex- 
tremely rough,  and  most  of  the  waves  in  the  Channel 
had  attempted  to  climb  into  his  lap,  so  that  his  armor 
had  rusted  badly.  He  came  rolling  into  Paris  at 
night,  as  everyone  does,  and  as  he  wandered  grouch- 
ily  up  the  Boulevard  St.  Michel  toward  the  Roman 
baths  the  people  in  the  restaurants  gave  him  the 
Chautauqua  salute  and  shouted  to  him  to  come  in 
and  have  an  aperitif.  Several  chic  young  women 
hailed  him  gaily  and  wanted  to  know  whether  he 
wasn't  anxious  to  buy  just  one  leetle  drink.  The 
moon  shone  down  through  a  hole  in  the  clouds,  and 
a  cab  driver  passed  him,  cracking  his  whip  and  sing- 

287 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

ing  a  gay  melody  in  a  wheezy  voice.  The  streets 
were  crowded  and  care-free  midinettes  were  exclaim- 
ing ecstatically  over  the  bead  bags  in  the  windows. 
The  general  decided  to  buy  a  "leetle  drink."  It  was 
then  that  the  remark  about  the  smiling  of  Paris 
sprang  into  being. 

"Paris,"  said  the  general  as  he  removed  his  hel- 
met and  banged  it  on  the  marble  table  top  in  order 
to  attract  the  attention  of  a  waiter  who  was  com- 
pletely absorbed  in  a  domino  tournament  in  which 
two  of  the  guests  had  been  engaged  since  early  in  the 
afternoon — "Paris  smiles — and  forgets." 

He  meant  that  the  general  atmosphere,  after  the 
gloom  of  London,  was  highly  exhilarating,  but  that 
he  was  slightly  disappointed  because  nobody  showed 
any  signs  of  wishing  to  hear  about  his  hard  trip, 
and  burst  into  tears  over  it.  Whenever  Paris  has 
her  troubles  she  always  manages  to  conceal  them. 
She  sings  and  she  smiles,  but  she  refuses  to  sob 
bitterly  over  the  woes  of  others.  If  others  wish  to 
join  in  her  songs  and  her  smiles,  very  good,  not  to 
say  tris-bon.  But  if  they  do  not  wish,  they  may 
make  of  themselves  an  absence.  Ah  oui!  But  the 
general,  being  tired  and  cross,  sprang  the  remark 
about  smiling — and  forgetting.  And  that  canard 
has  been  going  ever  since,  like  the  bit  of  fiction  to 
the  effect  that  home-made  rum  is  good  to  drink. 

One  has  evidence  that  Paris  does  not  forget  as 
soon  as  he  sets  foot  in  it  late  at  night.  One  always 
arrives  in  Paris  at  night,  anyway,  and  one  always 
arrives  late,  because  no  French  trains  ever  get  any- 
where on  time  these  days.  This  is  known  as  the  crise 
du  transportation — the  transportation  crisis.     Life  in 

288 


THE   MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

France  is  just  one  darned  crise  after  another.  No 
day  goes  by  without  its  crise,  and  every  morning  and 
every  afternoon  the  eighty  or  ninety  or  one  hundred 
Parisian  papers  announce  in  glaring  headlines  that 
another  crise  has  struck  town.  Sometimes  two  or 
three  new  crises  start  crising  on  the  same  day,  and 
the  Parisians  work  themselves  into  a  severe  lather 
over  the  situation.  Everyone  in  all  the  restaurants 
shrugs  his  shoulders  so  violently  that  the  floors 
shake  and  the  windows  rattle.  But  before  there 
can  be  a  crise  d'emotion  the  disturbing  crise  passes, 
and  on  the  following  day  there  is  a  new  crise  to  dis- 
tract the  mind  and  excite  the  fancy. 

We  were  speaking,  however,  of  arriving  in  Paris 
late  at  night.  One  usually  arrives  from  two  to  six 
hours  late,  but  always  late.  One  is  fresh  from  the 
hard-boiled  foods  and  the  clammy  fogs  of  London, 
and  the  very  atmosphere  of  Paris  is  elevating  and 
stimulating.  One  sees  strong  men  kissing  each 
other  on  the  station  platform.  One  catches  the 
odor  of  intoxicating  perfumes. 

"Aha!"  says  one,  "this  is  indeed  the  life,  then!" 
And  one  goes  out  to  get  a  taxicab.  One  immedi- 
ately is  confronted  by  a  crise — the  taxicab  crise. 
It  is  not  an  extremely  serious  crise,  but  whenever  one 
is  particularly  anxious  to  get  into  a  Parisian  taxicab 
and  is  just  about  to  do  so,  somebody  usually  comes 
up  behind  him  and  hauls  him  off  by  the  coat  tails 
and  gets  into  the  taxicab  himself  and  goes  away. 
However,  by  screaming  at  the  top  of  one's  lungs 
and  shaking  one's  fists  violently  at  the  persons  who 
are  also  desirous  of  obtaining  the  taxicab,  one  can 
usually  obtain  it  for  himself.     And  when  he  has  done 

289 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

so  and  is  riding  away  in  it  he  remembers  one  of  the 
things  that  Paris  won't  forget — to  wit,  the  fact 
that  the  battle  of  the  Marne  was  won  by  taxicabs. 

When  the  German  hordes  were  sweeping  into  the 
heart  of  France  in  19 14,  General  Gallieni  mobilized 
the  taxicabs  of  Paris,  loaded  them  with  poilus,  and 
rushed  them  out  against  the  Germans.  By  so  doing 
he  delivered  a  violent  and  unexpected  blow,  and  the 
Germans  were  defeated.  But  the  taxicabs  are  still 
doing  business.  Some  of  them,  it  is  true,  are  doing 
it  on  only  one  cyHnder,  and  that  one  cylinder  is 
frequently  afflicted  with  serious  pulmonary  troubles. 
Somehow  or  other,  though,  they  manage  to  stagger 
along.  And  everybody  who  rides  in  them  remembers 
the  battle  of  the  Marne.  He  feels  quite  sure  that  his 
particular  taxicab  was  one  of  the  staunch  band  that 
rushed  the  poilus  to  the  front  in  19 14.  It  has  a 
sunken  look  round  the  middle  that  convinces  him 
that  it  has  probably  carried  enormous  loads  of 
poilus  across  vast  stretches  of  shell  holes  and 
trenches.  If  he  tries  to  persuade  the  chauffeur  to 
take  him  up  a  hill  he  is  frequently  refused.  If  one 
wishes  to  go  up  to  Montmartre,  which  is  a  long, 
hard  pull,  one  usually  has  to  tackle  three  or  four 
taxi  drivers  before  meeting  with  any  success. 

"What!"  exclaims  the  bearded  driver,  cocking 
an  ear  at  the  distressed  coughs  of  his  engine,  "mount 
that  great  ascent  there  with  this  poor  little  one? 
Sacred  name  of  a  small  dog,  but  no!" 

And  his  machine  goes  lurching  off  in  search  of 
some  one  who  will  be  content  to  stay  on  level 
ground. 

They  don't  steer  as  well  as  they  might,  these 
290 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

veterans  of  the  Great  War.  They  collide  with  one 
another  frequently,  and  it  then  devolves  upon  every- 
one connected  with  the  collision  to  make  as  pas- 
sionate an  outcry  as  possible  in  order  to  establish 
his  innocence.  This  is  a  rule  which  no  Parisian 
ever  forgets,  any  more  than  he  forgets  the  excellent 
rule  which  provides  that  any  person  who  is  so 
careless  as  to  allow  himself  to  be  hit  by  an  auto- 
mobile shall  at  once  be  taken  into  custody  and  im- 
mured in  the  nearest  jail  imless  he  is  in  such  shape 
as  to  require  the  attentions  of  a  surgeon  or  an 
imdertaker. 

Because  of  this  law  Paris  is  unfamiliar  with  the 
type  of  person  who  walks  slowly  across  the  road  in 
front  of  an  approaching  automobile,  glaring  at  it 
contemptuously  in  order  to  show  that  he  is  not  only 
as  good  as  the  automobilist,  but  several  times  better. 
In  the  event  of  a  collision,  however,  everybody  is 
guilty  until  he  can  prove  his  innocence,  and  the 
only  way  to  prove  one's  innocence  in  Paris  is  to 
make  a  noise  about  it.  As  soon  as  a  collision  occurs, 
a  large  jury  of  onlookers,  with  several  gendarmes 
as  judges,  assemble  round  the  wreckage.  The  suf- 
ferers emerge  from  the  heap  and  at  once  begin  to 
shriek  and  howl  and  swear.  The  judges  and  the 
jury  listen  carefully.  When  the  shrieks  and  howls 
and  curses  of  one  party  become  weaker  than  those 
of  the  other,  the  weaker  side  is  marched  off  to  the 
police  station.  The  reasoning  of  the  onlookers  is 
simplicity  itself.  If  a  man  makes  a  lot  of  noise  he 
does  so  because  he  believes  that  his  cause  is  just. 
If  his  cause  is  unjust  he  will  be  unable  to  speak  about 
it  as  fluently  as  he  might  otherwise  speak.     So  when 

291 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

an  argument  rises  the  loudest  talker  commands  the 
most  respect. 

The  crise  of  transportation  is  the  first  crise  which 
one  encounters  when  entering  Paris,  but  before  one 
goes  away  one  hears  of  as  many  crises  as  there  are 
patriots  in  Poland — almost.  There  is  the  crise  of 
money,  the  crise  of  coal,  the  crise  of  food,  the  crise 
of  lodging,  the  crise  of  clothing,  the  crise  of  building 
material,  the  crise  of  sugar,  the  crise  of  inundation, 
the  crise  of  taxes,  the  crise  of  passports,  and  countless 
other  minor  crises.  We  have  the  same  thing  at 
home,  but  we  are  not  as  attentive  to  details  as  are 
the  Parisians.  When  strictly  fresh  eggs  are  brought 
from  their  year's  sojourn  in  the  Hoboken  cold- 
storage  plants  and  put  on  sale  at  $1.20  a  dozen  we 
in  America  emit  a  few  wild  shrieks  of  agony  in  the 
privacy  of  our  homes,  after  which  we  calm  down  and 
talk  about  the  servant  problem  or  presidential  can- 
didates. In  Paris,  however,  when  eggs  work  up  to 
8  francs  a  dozen  there  is  a  crise  des  oeujs.  The  news- 
papers put  it  on  the  front  page  and  great  numbers  of 
women  have  hysterics.  Men  walk  round  clutching 
their  heads  with  their  hands  and  ejaculating  that 
frightful  French  oath,  ' '  Name  of  a  man  of  a  name  of  a 
name"  in  hoarse  gutturals.  The  crise  passes,  as  all 
crises  do,  until  eggs  hit  8  francs  and  10  centimes  a 
dozen.  Then  the  crise  des  oeujs  takes  place  all 
over  again. 

Early  in  1920  the  French  oeuj  for  eating  purposes 
stood  at  9  francs  60  centimes  a  dozen.  There  had 
been  a  crise  with  every  lo-centime  advance.  Con- 
sidering the  enormous  number  of  things  which  are 
capable  of  having  a  crise,  one  would  expect  the 

292 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

Parisians  to  be  exhausted  from  the  violence  of  their 
emotions.  But  they  are  a  tireless  people — simple 
and  tireless — and  they  bear  up  under  the  strain 
remarkably  well. 

The  crise  of  money  is  probably  the  crise  which 
causes  the  most  excitement  in  Paris,  though  each 
and  every  crise  as  it  appears  seems  to  give  rise  to  the 
absolute  apex  of  excitement.  The  crise  of  money 
strikes  at  the  very  vitals  of  the  nation,  and  every 
Parisian  wants  every  American  to  know  all  about 
it  so  that  he  will  go  home  and  use  his  influence  with 
the  Treasury  Department  to  have  credits  extended 
to  France  in  order  that  French  money  may  soon 
be  as  good  as  it  ever  was,  and  so  that  when  the 
one  and  a  half  million  Americans  arrive  on  the  Con- 
tinent in  the  spring  and  summer,  as  rumor  says  that 
they  will,  they  will  have  to  pay  a  dollar  for  five 
francs'  worth  of  French  goods  instead  of  fifty  cents, 
as  they  sometimes  do  to-day. 

There  are  some  sections  of  Paris  where  an  Amer- 
ican won't  be  able  to  get  anything  at  half  price 
unless  the  shopkeepers  are  both  deaf  and  blind, 
and  I  have  noted  no  overwhelming  number  of  blind 
Parisian  shopkeepers,  or  of  deaf  ones,  either.  Many 
of  those  who  sell  luxuries — and  luxuries  are  the 
things  which  a  large  part  of  the  visiting  Americans 
will  buy — can  raise  prices  on  an  American  in  about 
nothing  and  two  fifths  seconds.  But  such  things 
as  food  and  clothing  look  cheap  to  an  American, 
though  at  the  same  time  they  appear  so  high  to  a 
Parisian  that  he  gets  dizzy  looking  up  at  them. 

One  gets  an  idea  of  Paris  prices  from  listening  to 
the   conversation   of  one  of   the  many   American 

293 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

expatriates  who  live  in  Paris.  These  people,  most 
of  whom  have  small  incomes,  moved  to  France  be- 
cause they  could  live  there  very  cheaply.  They 
could  have  a  commodious  furnished  apartment  for 
$15  a  month,  procure  a  marvelous  cook  for  $6  or 
$8  a  month  and  live  most  comfortably  on  $1,000 
a  year.  These  people  are  suffering  keenly  under 
present  conditions  and  are  actually  thinking  of 
going  back  to  the  United  States.  At  least  they 
are  talking  about  it.  Probably  they  will  never  go 
so  far  as  to  take  the  actual  step,  but  they  have 
contracted  the  habit  of  saying  that  with  French 
prices  where  they  are  they  might  as  well  live  in  the 
United  States.  They  are  very  bitter  over  it  and 
act  as  though  the  United  States  were  wholly  to 
blame  for  daring  to  allow  high  prices  to  exist.  It 
is  evident  that  they  expect  a  great  deal  of  pity, 
these  expatriated  Americans,  but  as  to  whether  they 
deserve  it  or  not  I  shall  not  attempt  to  say. 

When  I  arrived  in  Paris  early  in  the  winter  10 
francs  could  be  purchased  with  one  American  dollar, 
whereas  in  pre-war  days  a  dollar  was  equivalent  to 
only  5  francs.  A  few  days  later  a  dollar  would 
purchase  almost  iij/i  francs.  Still  a  few  days  later 
the  rate  was  again  10  francs  for  a  dollar. 

I  take  this  opportunity  of  repeating  that  large 
financial  affairs  are  as  much  of  an  enigma  to  me  as 
the  internal  mechanism  of  a  reciprocating  en- 
gine would  be  to  an  unclothed  black  man  from  the 
shores  of  Lake  Albert  Nyanza,  yet  I  have  a  persistent 
feeling  that  when  a  commodity,  whether  it  be  money 
or  garbage  pails  or  hair  nets  or  hop  poles,  sells  for 
$5  on  one  day  and  $7  on  the  second  day  and  $4.50 

294 


THE   MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

on  the  third  day  there  is  something  about  the  pro- 
ceeding that  gives  rise  to  a  strong  odor  of  fish — and 
no  mean  fish,  either.  It  also  seems  to  me  that 
there  is  no  particular  reason  why  on  a  given  day  in 
the  city  of  Paris  reputable  banking  institutions  should 
differ  so  widely  in  the  rates  at  which  they  exchange 
American  money  into  French  francs.  As  things 
stand,  Americans  must  shop  from  place  to  place 
with  their  American  dollars,  hunting  for  a  bank 
which  will  give  the  best  rate. 

The  low  value  of  the  franc  is  having  an  unfortunate 
effect  on  American  business.  American  business 
men  can  buy  whatever  they  want  in  Paris,  and  they 
are  buying  in  large  quantities.  But  for  a  French 
business  man  to  buy  in  America,  when  he  has  to  pay 
lo  francs  for  an  American  dollar  with  which  to  do 
his  buying,  is  almost  as  agonizing  as  it  would  be  to 
jab  a  knife  into  him  and  twist  it  round  a  couple  of 
times.  So  he  isn't  doing  it.  The  result,  argue  the 
French,  is  inevitable.  French  business  men  will 
buy  from  America  only  those  things  which  they 
absolutely  must  have.  Other  things  they  will  buy 
from  Germany  and  Czechoslovakia  and  Poland  and 
Austria,  where  the  currency  is  even  more  depreciated 
than  the  French  currency.  Eventually,  America 
will  wake  up  to  find  herself,  as  bankers  say,  holding 
the  sack,  and  in  the  sack  there  will  be  no  foreign 
trade  or  anything  else. 

The  argimient  is  thoroughly  sound,  and  the  only 
answer  to  it  is  for  American  financiers  and  business 
men  to  see  that  France  gets  enough  credits  so  that 
she  can  supply  herself  with  sufficient  raw  materials 
to  produce  a  maximum  of  goods  for  export.     As  soon 

295 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

as  she  is  exporting  to  America  as  much  as  she  is 
importing,  that  mysterious  thing  known  as  the 
balance  of  trade  will  be  stabilized,  as  the  business 
men  like  to  remark  in  their  piquant  jargon — or  do 
they  say  that  it  is  equalized  ?  Maybe  they  say  that 
the  balance  of  trade  will  be  balanced — or  adjusted. 
At  any  rate,  there  will  be  as  much  going  out  as  there 
is  coming  in,  and  consequently  the  demand  for 
French  money  and  for  American  money  with  which 
to  pay  for  the  goods  will  be  equal,  and  therefore 
neither  one  will  be  worth  more  than  the  other. 
The  French  franc  will  be  as  valuable  as  it  was  in  the 
glad  free  days  before  the  war,  and  trade  relations 
between  France  and  America  will  be  all  that  could 
be  desired. 

As  in  most  of  the  civilized  countries  of  the  world, 
the  laboring  classes  in  France  are  about  as  well 
off  as  anybody.  Parisian  laborers  are  making  very 
large  sums  of  money  in  many  cases.  It  is  not 
imusual  for  a  taxicab  driver  to  make  from  loo  to 
1 20  francs  a  day.  Knife  grinders,  who  are  or- 
ganized in  a  syndicate,  or  superunion,  and  who  have 
certain  streets  allotted  to  them,  drag  down  from 
60  to  80  francs  a  day.  The  average  laborer  is  paid 
from  150  to  200  francs  a  week. 

The  more  refined  clerk  and  white-collar  man, 
however,  are  not  so  fortunate.  A  salesman  in  a 
department  store  will  only  get  50  francs  a  week, 
plus  I  per  cent  on  his  sales;  and  salesgirls  receive 
37  francs  50  centimes  a  week,  plus  1  per  cent  on 
their  sales.  A  stenographer  earns  75  francs  a  week, 
and  if  she  knows  one  foreign  language  she  will  be 
paid  125  francs  a  week.     Bookkeepers  average  120 

296 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF   PARIS 

francs  a  week  and  cashiers  average  150  francs  a  week. 
Generally  speaking,  the  earnings  of  the  middle  class 
have  a  Httle  more  than  doubled,  while  the  laborers' 
wages  have  tripled,  quadrupled,  and  quintupled. 

Prices  in  many  cases  have  outstripped  the  leaps 
which  laborers'  wages  have  taken.  Back  in  19 14  a 
dozen  eggs  could  be  bought  for  a  little  more  than 
I  franc.  Last  winter  they  were  nearly  10.  Butter 
in  19 14  stood  at  i^  francs  a  pound,  and  last  winter 
it  went  to  8  francs.  A  liter  of  wine  used  to  cost 
}i  franc;  last  winter  it  cost  2.  Beer  used  to  cost 
30  centimes  a  liter;  last  year  it  cost  a  franc  a  liter, 
A  chicken  cost  5  francs  before  the  war  and  is  now 
flapping  along  at  25  francs.  Men's  clothes  have 
tripled  in  price,  as  have  women's  garments. 

The  standard  of  living  has  risen,  however,  and 
France's  reputation  for  thrift  is  being  severely 
jolted  by  her  workmen.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
French  laborer  has  usually  been  about  as  thrifty 
as  a  Russian  sailor  who  has  just  had  seven  drinks  of 
Japanese-Scotch  whisky  in  the  American  bar  on  the 
Nagasaki  water  front.  That  is  what  the  economists 
would  call  the  negation  of  thrift. 

The  two  curses  of  the  French  workman  have 
always  been  alcohol  and  improvidence.  He  is  not 
a  habitual  souse,  but  he  takes  a  small  snifter  every 
hour  or  so,  and  sometimes  there  comes  a  day  when 
he  beats  his  wife  fiercely,  attacks  the  furniture  with 
an  ax,  and  has  to  be  led  away  to  a  psychopathic 
ward.  As  for  his  thriftlessness,  that  is  usually  in- 
grained in  him  from  the  generations  of  workmen  from 
whom  he  is  descended.  He  has  the  idea  that  since 
he  was  born  a  workman  he  must  remain  one;   that 

297 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

it  is  as  useless  for  him  to  save  as  it  would  be  for 
him  to  try  to  play  a  piano.  Frequently  the  laborer 
has  been  a  peasant  who  broke  away  from  his  village 
because  he  wanted  to  get  to  the  intoxicating  whirl 
of  city  life;  so  when  he  gets  within  speaking  dis- 
tance of  the  intoxicating  whirl  he  jumps  in  with 
both  feet  and  participates  in  the  whirling  with  great 
vigor  and  ^lan. 

A  young  Frenchman  of  my  acquaintance  asked 
me  if  I  wanted  to  see  something  rather  snappy  in  the 
line  of  amusements.  I  said  that  if  it  was  really 
there  with  the  old  punch  and  would  give  me  a  thrill 
he  could  lead  on.  He  replied  that  the  Parisian  work- 
men were  crazy  about  it  and  that  it  was  packed 
to  the  doors  every  night.  It  sounded  all  right,  so 
we  started  off  for  an  evening  of  riotous  enjoyment. 
He  led  me  up  to  Montmartre,  and,  after  casting  round 
for  about  ten  minutes,  he  located  this  place  that  the 
Parisian  workmen  were  crazy  about.  It  had  a  soiled 
and  stodgy  entrance  with  a  couple  of  ghostly  green 
lights  burning  outside,  and  there  were  large  numbers 
of  workmen  gladly  parting  with  5  francs  apiece  in 
order  to  enter.     We  joined  them. 

The  interior  of  the  amusement  palace  was  walled 
with  canvas  painted  to  represent  the  inside  of  a 
burial  vault.  Coffins  were  ranged  up  and  down  the 
room,  and  on  each  side  of  each  coffin  was  a  wooden 
bench.  When  the  benches  were  filled  with  a  gay 
throng  of  some  two  hundred  amusement  seekers, 
two  men  dressed  as  undertakers'  assistants  came 
round  and  stuck  lighted  wax  tapers  into  holes  in  the 
coffins.  Another  undertaker's  assistant  pointed  out 
various  objets  d'art  on  the  walls — objects  such  as 

298 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

imitation  skulls  and  shin  bones — and  assured  every- 
body in  a  sepulchral  voice  that  it  was  an  awful  place. 
Still  another  undertaker  came  round  with  thimble- 
sized  glasses  of  beer  and  demanded  a  franc  in  pay- 
ment for  each  one,  while  a  head  undertaker  de- 
livered a  lecture  stating  that  everyone  who  drank 
the  beer  would  die  instantly.  It  was  terribly  thrilling 
and  exciting. 

After  remaining  in  this  tomb  for  ten  minutes  the 
occupants  were  requested  to  pass,  without  crowding, 
into  a  second  tomb,  where  a  lady  would  be  kind 
enough  to  die  for  them.  So  we  rose  and  passed 
blithely  into  the  second  tomb.  Here  a  woman  was 
placed  in  a  coffin  and  by  an  artful  arrangement  of 
mirrors  was  made  to  look  as  though  she  changed 
into  a  skeleton.  She  was  then  changed  back  again. 
After  that  the  audience  was  passed  out  into  the  open 
air,  greatly  edified  by  the  twenty  minutes  of  breezy 
entertainment.  The  main  entrance  was  thronged 
with  more  workmen,  each  one  panting  to  separate 
himself  from  5  francs  in  order  to  be  spiritually 
elevated  by  this  absorbing  spectacle. 

A  former  captain  in  the  French  army,  who  is  to- 
day occupying  a  well-paid  professional  position,  was 
making  moan  about  comparative  salaries. 

"Last  Sunday  evening,"  said  he,  "I  went  to  the 
theater.  The  play  was  a  good  one  and  I  was  dressed 
in  le  smoking.  In  the  seats  in  front  of  me  was  a 
workman  with  his  wife.  His  hands  were  black  and 
his  hair  was  dirty,  but  he  had  paid  forty  francs  for 
his  two  seats.  Before  the  war  such  a  sight  would 
never  have  been  seen.  To-day  it  is  common.  The 
workingmen  are  earning  as  much  as,  if  not  more 
20  299 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

than,   the  well-paid  professional  man.    And  they 
are  spending  it  as  fast  as  they  make  it." 

The  standard  of  living  has  risen  enormously  for  the 
Parisian  workers  during  the  past  two  or  three  years. 
Before  the  war  department-store  girls  usually  wore 
the  cheapest  of  footgear — cotton  stockings,  felt 
shoes,  frequently  wooden  sabots.  To-day  the  bulk 
of  them  wear  silk  stockings  which  cost  25  francs  a 
pair  at  the  minimum.  In  the  public  markets  one 
can  see  workmen's  wives,  hatless  but  wearing  silk 
stockings,  buying  chickens  at  25  and  30  francs  apiece 
without  a  thought  of  bargaining.  Alongside  them 
will  be  the  wives  of  middle-class  workers  wearing 
hats  and  cotton  stockings  and  carrying  that  eloquent 
badge  of  respectability,  a  net  bag.  They  will  bar- 
gain and  barter  for  chickens,  and  will  usually  turn 
to  something  else,  because  they  are  unable  to  pay 
the  price. 

The  thrifty  people  of  France  have  been  the 
middle-class  folk,  and  to-day  their  luck  has  deserted 
them.  They  are  forced  to  clutch  each  franc  so 
tightly  that  the  figure  of  Liberty  groans  aloud.  In 
the  old  days  the  middle-class  folk  usually  shot  for  a 
mark  of  50,000  francs.  This  they  invested  in  real 
estate  and  bonds  so  that  they  would  have  an  income 
of  2,500  francs  a  year;  and  on  the  2,500  francs  they 
lived  comfortably.  To-day  the  2,500  francs  doesn't 
get  them  very  far.  And  incomes  that  used  to  be 
2,500  francs  dwindled  pitifully  during  the  years  of 
the  war,  for  there  was  a  moratorium,  and  the  thrifty 
middle-class  folk  who  had  sunk  their  hard-earned 
francs  in  real  estate  received  no  rents  at  all  until  the 
end  of  last  October. 

300 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

The  thrifty  French  people  who  are  trying  to  exist 
on  the  interest  which  their  once-sufficient  capital  is 
bringing  in  are  perilously  close  to  starving. 

I  referred  a  short  way  back  to  the  Frenchman  who 
went  to  the  theater  garbed  in  le  smoking.  Le  smok- 
ing is  the  Parisian  way  of  saying  smoking  jacket,  or 
dinner  coat.  One  of  the  things  that  Paris  can't 
forget  is  its  habit  of  taking  an  English  noun,  attaching 
an  "ing  "  to  the  end  of  it,  and  thinking  that  the  result 
is  eminently  correct.  When  a  Parisian  wishes  to 
refer  in  a  distinctly  American  manner  to  a  long  walk, 
he  calls  it  "a  footing."  A  place  where  a  dance  is  held 
is  known  as  "un  dancing."  A  brisk  ten-round  bout 
is  graced  with  the  title  of  "le  boxing."  When  he  sets 
out  for  a  bit  of  ground-and-lofty  tumbling  on  roller 
skates  he  leaves  word  that  he  is  off  for  "le  skating." 
"Le  skating'  is  where  he  goes,  and  "le  skating"  is 
also  what  he  indulges  in,  just  as  he  goes  to  "un 
dancing"  to  have  "le  dancing." 

This  method  of  expression  seems  to  have  become  a 
mania  with  the  Parisians.  Unless  they  are  restrained 
by  some  strong  hand  they  will  soon  begin  to  speak 
of  a  kitchen  as  "le  cooking,"  of  a  bath  as  "le  wash- 
ing," of  a  suit  of  pajamas  as  "le  sleeping,"  of  a  chair 
as  "un  sitting,"  and  so  on.  The  ultimate  result 
might  be  an  effective  pidgin  French  in  which  a 
Frenchman  and  an  Englishman,  with  the  assistance 
of  a  number  of  Delsartean  gestures,  might  be  able 
to  carry  on  a  conversation  without  any  real  knowl- 
edge of  one  another's  language,  but  when  foreigners 
attempted  to  master  the  hybrid  expressions  it  would 
probably  necessitate  frequent  enlargements  of  lead- 
ing madhouses, 

301 


KUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

The  Parisians  have  become  passionate  devotees  of 
"le  boxing."  Every  time  "un  boxing"  is  staged  in 
Paris  a  large  and  enthusiastic  crowd  turns  out. 
There  is  a  belief  in  certain  circles  that  the  Parisian 
has  an  odd  habit  of  fighting  with  his  feet  and  of 
biting  in  clinches.  After  viewing  a  few  examples  of 
"le  boxing"  in  Paris,  however,  I  am  in  a  position  to 
state  that  the  average  French  boxer  is  more  generous 
in  the  use  of  his  fists  than  the  average  American 
boxer,  and  that  his  sole  aim  in  life,  while  indulging 
in  "le  boxing,"  is  to  hit  his  opponent  as  frequently 
as  possible  in  a  given  period  of  time.  And  French 
fighters,  I  don't  mind  saying,  are  pretty  good  sports. 
Not  infrequently  a  couple  of  boxers  who  have  been 
mauling  each  other's  features  for  a  matter  of  ten 
rounds  will,  when  the  gong  rings,  embrace  affec- 
tionately and  exchange  kisses.  Of  course  this  is  not 
the  conventional  manner  of  finishing  a  fight  from  an 
American  standpoint.  It  is  even  possible  that  if 
somebody  had  raised  Mr.  Willard  from  the  floor 
at  the  close  of  his  recent  set-to  with  Mr.  Dempsey 
and  had  held  him  up  while  Mr.  Dempsey  kissed  him, 
there  might  have  been  boorish  persons  in  the  vicinity 
who  would  have  jeered  at  the  proceeding  and  even 
given  vent  to  catcalls  and  other  low  sounds.  But 
in  Paris  such  an  ending  to  a  fight  is  regarded  as 
nothing  out  of  the  ordinary,  and  anyone  who  ven- 
tured to  make  sport  of  it  would  be  viciously  hissed. 

Among  the  things  which  Paris  hasn't  forgotten  is 
the  knack  of  making  feminine  garb  in  such  manner 
that  every  male  eye  which  encounters  it  is  arrested, 
not  to  say  put  out.  Some  of  the  feminine  apparel 
which  was  produced  in  Paris  last  winter  was  the  most 

302 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

arresting  thing  that  I  had  ever  happened  to  witness. 
Paris,  I  know,  is  not  New  York,  nor  does  anybody- 
want  it  to  be,  and  comparisons  are  odious  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing.  Yet  I  cannot  refrain  from  remarking 
that  some  of  the  Parisian  gowns  which  I  saw  in 
leading  dressmaking  establishments  were  so  arrest- 
ing in  their  nature  that  if  they  had  appeared  on  any 
stage  in  New  York  the  whole  show  would  have  been 
pinched  at  once.  And  I  have  never  heard  the  New 
York  stage  accused  of  being  either  prudish  or 
puritanical. 

I  was  led  to  several  of  these  establishments  by 
an  accommodating  young  woman  who  was  known 
to  all  of  them  and  who  assured  the  respective  crea- 
tion creators  that  I  was  there  in  the  interests  of 
science  and  not  for  the  purpose  of  stealing  their 
styles.  Otherwise  I  would  have  been  made  to 
feel  like  a  soiled  and  insignificant  member  of 
Coal  Passers'  Local  No.  17  who  had  by  mistake 
stumbled  into  the  Union  League  Club  and  called 
hoarsely  for  an  onion  sandwich.  The  Paris  dress- 
makers are  greatly  troubled  by  the  fiends  in  human 
shape  who  enter  their  establishments,  gaze  for  a 
moment  at  a  2,000-franc  creation,  and  then  go  back 
to  little  shops  on  side  streets  and  reproduce  the  same 
creation  for  a  matter  of  500  francs.  They  are  also 
somewhat  irked  by  the  persons  who  come  there  and 
hang  round  for  the  sole  purpose  of  seeing  a  good 
show  for  nothing.  Consequently  every  strange  face 
is  viewed  with  suspicion  and  alarm. 

Having  been  vouched  for,  I  was  allowed  to  sit 
magnificently  at  one  end  of  a  large,  opulent  room 
walled  with  mirrors  and  permeated  with  such   a 

303 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

strong  odor  of  perfumery  that  a  hatful  of  air  from 
it  would  have  entirely  changed  the  odor  of  the 
average  small-town  movie  theater.  As  is  well 
known,  drastic  measures  are  needed  to  change  the 
atmosphere  of  such  a  place,  but  a  little  of  the  air 
from  that  dressmaking  establishment  would  have 
done  it. 

One  by  one  the  manikins  pranced  out,  stepping 
high  and  holding  the  hands  just  the  way  the  fashion 
artists  draw  them.  I  couldn't  get  over  the  feeling 
that  instead  of  flexing  the  wrists  gracefully  and 
allowing  their  fingers  to  trail  loosely  in  the  air  the 
manikins  should  have  held  their  dresses  on  with  both 
hands.  In  many  cases  the  dresses  had  no  backs 
and  were  cut  down  below  the  waistline. 

Though  this  matter  is  a  rather  delicate  one,  I  feel 
called  on,  in  the  interests  of  truth,  to  point  out  that 
when  a  dress  has  no  back  and  also  has  a  deep  in- 
cision cut  down  from  the  waistline  there  can  be  no 
garments  of  any  sort  worn  beneath  the  dress  without 
being  exposed  to  the  naked  eye,  due  to  the  fact — 
so  far  as  my  imperfect  technical  knowledge  permits 
me  to  speak — that  undergarments  must  be  fastened 
round  the  waist  in  order  to  remain  in  the  position 
in  which  they  were  designed  to  remain.  I  mention 
this  because  last  winter  was  a  cold  winter  in  Paris 
and  coal  was  scarce.  The  fact  that  frail  and 
beautiful  women  traveled  round  with  nothing  under 
their  dresses,  and  with  scarcely  any  dresses  to  boot, 
is  a  comprehensive  commentary  on  the  amount  of 
punishment  that  a  woman  will  endure  in  order  to  be 
in  style.  I  would  greatly  admire  to  see  a  man's 
tailor  attempt  to  introduce  some  sort  of  style  in  dress 

304 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

suits  that  would  make  it  necessary  for  the  men  who 
use  them  to  throw  away  their  coats,  waistcoats, 
shirts,  and  undergarments  and  roam  round  wearing 
nothing  else  but  what  that  left  them.  That  tailor's 
chances  of  preserving  his  soundness  of  body  would, 
I  believe,  be  shm. 

In  one  of  the  best-known  dressmaking  establish- 
ments in  Paris — which  is  to  say  one  of  the  best  known 
in  the  world — a  manikin  was  brought  out  in  a  dress 
which  had  nothing  above  the  waist,  front  or  back, 
but  eight  strands  of  rhinestones.  The  rhinestones — 
four  strands  on  each  side — ran  from  the  waist  in 
back  over  each  shoulder  and  down  to  the  waist  in 
front.  They  were  slender  strands — and  that's  all 
there  was  above  the  waist.  I  told  several  friends 
about  it. 

"Of  course,"  they  all  said,  "there  was  a  little 
chiffon  or  something  in  addition." 

But  there  wasn't.  There  was  nothing  but  those 
strings  of  rhinestones.  And  the  dress  ended  about 
two  inches  below  the  knee.  The  thing  was  both 
ludicrous  and  disgusting.  It  reminded  one  of  that 
old,  old  story  which  is  ascribed  to  Sam  Jones,  the 
revivalist.  He  came  home  from  a  dinner  party 
one  night.  His  wife,  who  was  ill,  hadn't  accom- 
panied him.  "Well,"  said  she,  prepared  to  get  an 
entertaining  earful,  "what  did  the  women  wear?" 

Jones  gazed  contemplatively  at  the  ceiling  and 
scratched  his  chin. 

"My  dear,"  said  he,  "I  don't  know.  I  didn't 
look  under  the  table." 

The  chief  salesladies  in  these  establishments  were 
pressed  to  give  an  honest  opinion  concerning  the 

305 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

beauty  of  such  garments.  All  of  them  at  first  insisted 
vehemently  that  they  were  trds-chic — oh,  trds,  trh- 
chic!  Close  questioning,  however,  forced  them  to 
admit  that  no  lady  would  wear  many  of  them  as 
they  were  exhibited.  In  all  their  unconcealed  chic- 
ness  they  were  sometimes  worn  by  persons  whose 
judgment  was  somewhat  impaired  by  their  desire 
to  create  a  sensation,  or  by  individuals  who  felt  that 
an  unrestricted  exposure  of  their  charms  was  a  dis- 
tinct business  asset.  But  the  true  lady  felt  obHged 
to  fill  in  a  few  of  the  widest  expanses  of  nothingness 
with  several  yards  of  chiffon  and  even  to  let  down 
the  skirts  a  few  feet. 

For  the  benefit  of  womenfolk  in  America  who 
follow  the  rise  and  fall  in  the  heights  of  dress  backs 
with  the  same  keen  interest  with  which  menfolk 
follow  the  rise  and  fall  of  United  States  Steel,  I 
may  say  that  the  Parisian  dress  weevils  predict  a 
marked  decrease  in  the  amount  of  flesh  that  will  be 
exposed  in  the  future.  Not  many  weeks  ago,  as  I 
understand  it,  a  dress  that  had  anything  above  the 
waist  in  back  was  considered  a  bit  dowdy,  though 
some  of  the  leaders  in  dress  creation  permitted  a 
small  butterfly  or  bluebird  or  Parmachene  Belle  fly 
to  be  painted  on  the  flesh  just  under  the  left  shoulder 
or  on  the  right  of  a  dimple  in  the  small  of  the  back. 

To-day,  however,  a  wisp  of  tulle  or  an  unobtrusive 
string  of  beads  may  be  passed  over  the  shoulder 
without  rousing  adverse  comment,  and  it  is  believed 
on  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  that  this  wisp  or  string  may 
in  time  grow  greatly  in  size,  until  evening  gowns 
have  again  developed  a  near  or  rudimentary  back. 
This  change  will  be  due  in  part  to  the  loud  and  ear- 

306 


THE   MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

splitting  protests  which  are  voiced  by  the  men  who 
attend  "le  dancing"  with  young  women  who  wear 
the  gowns  which  have  nothing  above  the  waist  but 
powder.  After  dancing  with  them  the  young  men 
find  that  their  smokings  look  very  much  as  though 
they  have  been  left  overnight  in  a  flour  barrel,  and 
after  every  dance  they  are  forced  to  retire  to  the  coat 
room  and  be  brushed  off  by  several  attendants. 
It  will  also  be  due  to  the  fact  that,  tough  and  hardy 
a^s  the  feminine  constitution  is  known  to  be,  it  is  not 
sufficiently  tough  and  hardy  to  endure  sitting  through 
a  long  dinner  in  a  draughty  room  if  the  upper  part  of 
the  body  is  entirely  exposed,  without  developing 
severe  and  unlovely  cases  of  goose  flesh. 

The  milHon  and  a  half  Americans  who  are  ex- 
pected in  Paris  during  the  summer  months  will  find 
that  Paris  hasn't  forgotten  her  entrancing  and 
unique  methods  of  doing  business.  They  will,  I 
predict,  be  ravished  by  the  methods  which  obtain 
in  the  perfumery  stores.  The  amount  of  the  old 
jazz  which  a  Parisian  uses  in  selling  one  small  bottle 
of  perfumery  is  sufficient  to  sell  an  entire  perfumery 
factory  to  an  unwilHng  Vermonter.  Some  of  them 
adopt  the  hushed  or  adoring  method  of  selHng, 
while  others  prefer  the  blatant  or  squirt-gun  method, 
in  which  the  prospective  purchaser  receives  a  charge 
of  perfumery  in  the  face  as  soon  as  he  steps  over  the 
threshold. 

When  one  enters  an  establishment  which  uses  the 
first  method  he  finds  himself  in  a  chastely  simple 
room  with  nothing  in  it  to  distract  the  eye.  Two 
severely  plain  chairs  flank  a  rich  but  unobtrusive 
table,  while  the  carpet  and  the  hangings  melt  into 

307 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

the  soft  coloring  of  the  woodwork.  All  is  harmony 
and  restfulness.  One  enters  and  sits.  There  is 
nothing,  as  one  might  say,  stirring.  There  is  no 
perfumery  in  sight.  One  becomes  wrapped  in  pro- 
found contemplation.  He  forgets  all  about  per- 
fumes and  has  hot  flushes  over  the  thought  that  he 
may  have  made  a  mistake  in  exchanging  his  dollars 
at  the  rate  of  lo  francs  20  centimes  for  each  dollar. 
Possibly  if  he  had  hunted  farther  he  might  have  got 
10  francs  40,  or  even  10  francs  60.  Ye  gods! 
Would  it  be  better  to  exchange  all  his  dollars  to- 
morrow or  to  wait  a  week  ?  Or  would  it  be  better — 
Suddenly  the  hangings  are  pushed  aside.  A  mysteri- 
ous personage  with  a  magnificent  black  beard  reminis- 
cent of  a  luxuriant  juniper  bush  enters  the  room 
dramatically.  Ha!  Monsieur!  Would  monsieur 
perhaps  then  care  to  examine  a  perfume? 

Monsieur  is  tempted  to  reply  that  he  is  there  for 
the  purpose  of  buying  a  load  of  top  dressing  for  his 
Maine  hop  garden,  but  he  refrains.  Yes,  he  would 
care  to  examine  a  perfume*  Bring  it  on  then,  but 
yes. 

The  mysterious  personage  withdraws.  In  a  mo- 
ment he  returns  with  a  small  box.  He  holds  it  in 
the  air  and  gazes  at  it  as  though  it  held  the  ashes 
of  a  lost  love.  He  opens  it  tenderly  and  extracts 
a  small  bottle.  The  small  bottle  he  places  in  the 
exact  center  of  the  large  table.  Then  he  backs  off 
a  few  steps  and  gazes  proudly  at  monsieur — as 
proudly  as  though  he  had  done  something  wonderful. 
One  expected  him  to  crow,  as  though  he  had  laid  it. 
One  is  impressed.  The  bottle  must  be  worth  at 
least  a  million  dollars.     What  is  it,  then? 

308 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

Ah !  It  is  the  latest  novelty — it  is  the  most  recent 
creation!  Marvelous!  Exquisite!  And  the  name! 
Ah  out!  The  name!  "Let  Him  Not  Forget  This 
Moment."  This  is  its  name — "Let  Him  Not  Forget 
This  Moment."  The  personage  kisses  his  hand  at 
the  bottle.  He  rolls  up  his  eyes.  He  is  choked  with 
emotion.  Ah  oui!  Well,  what  does  this  "Let 
Him  Not  Forget  This  Moment"  smell  like,  then? 
Crack  it  open  or  something.  Give  us  a  smell  of  the 
stuff,  no? 

The  personage  bows  his  head,  elevating  his 
shoulders  and  hands  in  token  of  surrender.  He 
pushes  back  a  panel  in  the  wall  and  extracts  a  small 
pad  of  su^de  leather.  Standing  before  monsieur,  he 
flaps  it  back  and  forth  so  that  it  misses  monsieur's 
nose  by  an  inch  at  each  flap.  The  air  is  permeated 
with  sweetness.  The  personage's  eyes  roll  up  again. 
He  flaps  with  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  hand  he 
throws  a  kiss  at  the  ceiling.  Ah !  Delicious !  Rav- 
ishing! A  perfimie  of  all  perfumes  most  rare,  most 
entrancing,  most  unequaled,  most — 

Yes,  yes,  yes,  yes,  then!  But  let's  have  a  look 
at  some  others!  Is  that  the  only  perfume  there  is 
on  the  premises  ?  And  how  much  is  it  ?  How  much, 
yes? 

Ah  yes!  Eh,  well,  it  is  four  dollars  and  eighty 
cents. 

Four  dollars  and  eighty  cents!  From  the  arduous 
toil  which  the  personage  has  put  into  his  selling  talk 
it  seemed  impossible  that  he  could  afford  to  let  it 
go  for  a  cent  under  three  hundred.  Four  dollars 
and  eighty  cents!  Eh,  bien!  Well,  bring  on  some 
others. 

309 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

So  the  personage  brings  them  out  one  by  one.  He 
works  himself  into  a  frenzy  over  each  bottle.  His 
beard  trembles  and  his  eyes  roll  up  and  he  kisses 
his  hand  constantly.  One  gets  a  whiff  of  "The 
Love  of  a  Thousand  Years"  and  of  "Give  Me  Your 
Lips"  and  of  "You  Must  Come  Back  to  Me,"  as 
well  as  of  several  others.  And  after  the  personage 
has  worn  himself  to  a  frazzle  one  buys  one  bottle  of 
"Let  Him  Not  Forget  This  Moment"  at  four  dollars 
and  eighty  cents  and  is  ushered  out  with  much 
ceremony. 

The  other  variety  of  perfumery  shop  is  not  so 
ceremonious  and  there  is  more  action.  One  smells 
them  for  yards  when  approaching.  Beautiful  sales- 
ladies are  observed  flitting  about  among  glittering 
bottles  of  pleasing  shape.  One  enters,  murmuring 
disjointedly  of  perfumes.  One  of  the  beautiful 
salesladies  rushes  up,  bearing  a  quart  bottle  with  an 
atomizer  attachment.  She  shoots  from  the  hip, 
catching  the  prospective  purchaser  full  in  the  chest. 
As  he  backs  away  she  seizes  another  bottle  from  a 
table  and  lets  him  have  another  charge  in  the  face. 
As  he  mops  it  from  his  eyes  she  picks  up  another 
bottle  and  sprays  him  all  over.  Unless  forcibly 
restrained,  she  keeps  on  with  this  program  in- 
definitely. 

I  entered  one  of  these  shops  after  a  long  study  of 
the  bottles  in  the  window.  Evidently  I  had  been 
spotted  as  a  good  prospect  before  I  entered,  for 
when  I  opened  the  door  a  saleslady  was  awaiting 
me  with  an  atomizer  loaded  with  ' '  Kisses  From  the 
Heart."  As  she  shot  I  ducked  my  head  and  the 
load  hit  the  top  of  my  hat. 

310 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

I  have  dragged  that  hat  into  Germany,  and  down 
the  Rhine,  and  through  BerHn,  and  across  the 
PoHsh  frontier.  It  has  rolled  round  in  freight  cars 
and  second-class  coaches  loaded  with  odorous  Poles. 
German  and  Polish  and  Austrian  hat  boys  have 
dropped  it  on  the  floor.  It  has  passed  through 
Czechoslovakia  customs  officials  and  weathered 
several  snowstorms  and  rainstorms;  and  it  still 
retains  a  seductive  scent  which  is  sometimes  embar- 
rassing. From  this  it  may  be  seen  that  if  one  per- 
mits the  salesladies  of  the  squirt-gun  school  of  per- 
fumery shops  to  follow  their  natural  bent  and  bring 
all  their  atomizers  into  action,  one  will  be  months 
in  getting  over  it.  Skilled  Parisian  statisticians  have 
figured  that  for  every  five- dollar  sale  the  squirt- 
gun  school  of  shops  squirt  away  enough  perfumery 
to  scent  three  regiments  of  infantry  and  a  machine- 
gun  company. 

The  department  stores  of  Paris,  too,  have  customs 
which  catch  the  fancy.  One  enters  a  department 
store,  for  example,  to  purchase  six  inches  of  ribbon. 
Others,  too,  are  at  the  ribbon  counter,  all  determined 
to  buy.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  pushing  and  an 
occasional  scream  as  the  emotions  of  a  purchaser 
become  too  much  for  her.  The  ribbon  salesman,  too, 
is  suffering.  His  counter  is  open  on  all  sides,  so 
that  the  purchasers  must  assemble  round  it.  Every 
person  who  passes  the  ribbon  counter  steps  on  a 
purchaser  and  bumps  into  the  ribbon  clerk,  who 
races  tirelessly  round  and  round  his  small  domain. 
At  intervals  he  spies  some  one  who  has  decided  on  a 
purchase.  Pouncing  on  her,  he  leads  her  away  and 
stands  her  up  against  a  wall  with  instructions  to 

311 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER' 

remain  until  he  returns.  Soon  he  returns  with 
another  purchaser  and  stands  her  against  the  wall 
beside  the  first  one.  A  third  is  added  to  the  line, 
and  a  fourth,  and  sometimes  even  a  fifth.  Then 
he  takes  from  each  one  the  bit  of  ribbon  that  she 
has  purchased  and  leads  the  line  to  the  cash  window. 

Paris  cash  windows  are  usually  located  on  the 
most  populous  aisles  in  the  stores.  All  purchasers 
must  go  to  them  in  order  to  pay  their  money,  so 
that  as  they  stand  waiting  and  waiting  and  waiting 
— and  waiting — to  finish  their  business  they  are 
bumped  and  pushed  and  shoved  and  stepped  on 
with  the  utmost  freedom.  Hundreds  of  people 
attempt  to  walk  up  their  backs.  It  is  nerve-racking 
to  a  degree.  Nay,  it  is  nerve-wrecking  to  several 
degrees.  In  the  scale  of  nerve  rack  I  should  say 
that  paying  a  Parisian  department-store  cashier  was 
about  the  tenth  degree.  Trying  to  see  an  important 
business  man  or  government  official  is  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  the  twentieth  degree,  while  calling  some- 
body on  a  Parisian  telephone  is  about  the  thirty- 
second  degree.  The  thirty-third,  or  master's  degree, 
should,  I  believe,  be  unqualifiedly  bestowed  on  the 
task  of  procuring  from  the  police  of  Paris  a  police 
permit  to  leave  France.  This  last  proceeding  can  be 
depended  on  to  rack  every  nerve  to  the  limit,  with 
enough  rack  left  over  to  keep  the  nerves  on  edge 
for  the  next  few  days.  These  matters,  however,  I 
will  touch  on  at  greater  length  in  another  place. 

After  a  Parisian  department-store  salesman  has 
kept  his  little  flock  standing  in  front  of  the  cashier's 
desk  until  almost  everyone  in  the  store  has  had  a 
chance  to  kick  them  or  push  them,  he  gets  back  the 

312 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

packages  which  he  had  handed  over  to  the  cashier 
to  be  wrapped  up.  Though  the  contents  of  the 
packages  are  naturally  concealed  by  the  wrappings, 
some  peculiar  gift  of  second  sight,  which  has  evi- 
dently been  abnormally  developed  by  years  of  prac- 
tice, enables  the  salesman  to  give  each  purchaser 
the  proper  package.  This,  to  me,  is  one  of  the 
darkest  mysteries  of  the  French  nation,  I  am 
thoroughly  familiar  with  that  edifying  book  by  the 
late  Eugene  Sue  entitled  The  Mysteries  oj  Paris, 
but  I  am  free  to  state  that  Mr.  Sue  overlooked  a 
highly  baffling  mystery  when  he  failed  to  touch  on 
the  wonderful  success  of  the  French  salesman  at 
projecting  his  mental  vision  through  three  thick- 
nesses of  wrapping  paper. 

Another  thing  that  the  Parisian  cannot  forget  is 
his  aversion  to  the  checking  system.  He  regards  a 
check  on  the  greatest  banks  in  the  world  with  as 
much  loathing  and  horror  as  he  would  display  if  he 
were  confronted  by  the  deadly  cobra.  If  he  has 
known  a  man  for  years  and  known  that  he  has 
enough  money  to  buy  the  Eiffel  Tower  and  a  private 
Alp,  he  might  consent  with  great  reluctance  to  accept 
a  check,  provided  it  were  for  less  than  twenty-seven 
dollars.  But  even  then  he  will  rush  it  to  the  bank 
and  get  the  money  with  all  possible  speed.  He 
cannot  regard  a  check  as  money. 

An  American  friend  of  mine  had  been  trading 
with  a  Parisian  tailor  for  years.  One  morning  last 
winter  he  dropped  into  the  tailoring  establishment 
to  pay  his  bill.  In  his  pocket  he  had  insufficient 
funds,  so  he  wrote  out  a  check  on  a  large  Paris  bank. 
The  head  of  the  firm  picked  it  up  gingerly  and 

313 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

viewed  it  with  deep  disapprobation.  Heaven  then, 
what  is  it  that  it  is,  that  there?  The  American  was 
disgusted. 

"Look  here,  George,"  said  he,  "you've  been  get- 
ting my  money  for  years.  You  know  that  I've  got 
enough  to  buy  your  whole  shop  a  dozen  times  over. 
You  know  that  I  shall  be  here  for  months.  You 
know  this  check  is  on  a  good  bank.  What's  wrong 
with  you,  anyhow?  That's  money  I've  given  you. 
It  isn't  just  a  piece  of  paper — it's  money.  Can't 
you  get  that  into  the  old  bean?" 

The  head  of  the  firm  elevated  his  eyebrows  de- 
spairingly, shrugged  his  shoulders,  and  thanked  his 
American  customer,  who  stalked  off  down  the  street 
in  a  somewhat  fretful  state.  He  walked  straight 
from  the  tailor's  to  his  bank,  stopping  only  to  look 
in  one  shop  window.  He  went  to  the  paying  teller's 
window  to  draw  some  money.  In  the  line  ahead 
of  him  was  a  small  boy  with  a  check.  The  American 
got  a  look  at  it  over  the  boy's  shoulder.  It  was  his 
own  check  which  he  had  just  given  to  the  tailor. 
The  tailor  had  been  filled  with  so  much  distrust  of  it 
that  he  couldn't  wait  a  minute  before  getting  his 
money  on  it.  And  though  he  had  an  account  at  a 
near-by  bank,  the  thought  of  depositing  the  check 
to  his  own  account  never  occurred  to  him.  The 
American  went  right  back  and  read  the  tailor  the 
riot  act,  but  it's  certain  that  the  tailor  distrusts  a 
check  as  much  to-day  as  he  ever  did. 

There  is  another  unfathomable  matter  that  Mr. 
Sue  failed  to  include  in  his  Mysteries  of  Paris,  and 
that  is  the  reason  for  the  manner  in  which  Parisian 
theaters  sell  their  theater  tickets.     One  doesn't  buy 

314 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

a  ticket  and  walk  in.  Heaven,  but  no!  In  my 
crude  American  way  I  rushed  into  a  theater  late 
one  night,  slapped  down  sixteen  francs  and  received 
a  pink  slip  of  tissue  paper  entitling  me  to  a  seat  in 
next  to  the  last  row.  Holding  it  prominently  in 
my  left  hand,  I  made  for  the  door  leading  to  the 
orchestra. 

Sacred!  Sacred  name  of  a  name,  in  fact!  What 
is  it  that  I  go  to  do,  truly!  A  strong  doorkeeper 
leaped  at  me  with  cries  and  pushed  me  away. 
Attendants  within  cried  out  in  alarm  and  sprang  to 
face  me.  There  were  distant  shouts,  and  one  at- 
tendant ran  down  from  the  balcony.  The  entire 
lobby  was  in  a  turmoil.  At  length,  seeing  that  I 
meant  no  harm,  the  doorkeeper  relaxed  and  took  me 
by  the  arm  and  led  me  where  I  should  have  gone. 

In  the  center  of  the  lobby  was  a  high,  desklike 
arrangement  very  similar  to  a  judge's  bench.  Be- 
hind the  desk  sat  three  grave  men  in  uniform.  I 
stood  before  the  tribunal  and  was  regarded  severely. 
I  handed  my  pink  slip  to  the  judge  in  the  center. 
He  scrutinized  it  closely  and  went  into  a  private 
conference  over  it  with  the  judge  at  his  right. 
Then  the  judge  at  his  left  was  called  into  the  con- 
ference. They  took  notes  in  ledgers  and  conferred 
again.  There  seemed  to  be  some  doubts  in  their 
minds  as  to  whether  I  should  be  acquitted  or  sen- 
tenced to  thirty  days  in  jail.  At  length  I  was 
acquitted,  whereat  I  presented  the  pink  slip  to  the 
doorkeeper  and  was  allowed  to  enter  the  theater. 

I  sought  the  reason  for  this  formality.  Why  did 
the  three  judges  sit  on  all  tickets?  What  did  they 
do   to   them?    Nobody  knew.    The   consensus   of 

21  315 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

opinion  was  that  they  merely  looked  at  the  tickets. 
But  why  was  it  necessary?  Why  employ  three 
judges;  why  not  allow  the  ticket  seller  and  the  door- 
keeper to  do  the  looking?  Why  use  five  men  when 
two  would  answer  the  purpose?  The  answer  was 
not  forthcoming.     It  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  Paris. 

There  are  minor  mysteries.  Why,  for  example, 
does  the  water  never  boil  in  Parisian  restaurants 
before  half  past  four  in  the  afternoon?  And  why 
does  every  Parisian  always  assure  you  that  any  part 
of  Paris  to  which  you  may  wish  to  go  is  a  ten- 
minute  walk?  And  what  leads  so  many  venerable 
Parisians  to  think  that  they  can  catch  fish  from 
the  banks  of  the  Seine?  You  can,  as  the  saying 
goes,  search  me.  I  have  tried  in  many  a  Parisian 
restaurant  to  get  a  bit  of  tea  at  four  or  at  a  quarter 
of  four  or  at  twenty  minutes  after  four.  My  efforts 
have  been  fruitless.  One  is  assured  that  the  water 
boils  at  half  past  four  and  at  no  time  prior  to  that. 
Call  the  head  waiter,  call  the  manageir,  call  the 
proprietor.  They  know  the  habits  of  that  water, 
and  far  be  it  from  them  to  make  any  alterations  in 
a  fixed  habit.  It  boils  at  half  past  four.  Then  one 
can  have  tea,  but  not  before  then. 

Why  should  this  be?  Ask  the  water.  It  does  no 
good  to  ask  anyone  else.  Nor  is  it  of  any  use  to 
try  to  discover  why  all  distances  in  Paris  are  ten- 
minute  walks  in  Parisian  minds.  It  is  my  belief 
that  if  one  were  to  stop  a  Parisian  on  the  street  and 
ask  him  how  long  it  would  take  to  walk  to  London 
he  would  automatically  reply,  "Ten  minutes."  In 
order  to  cover  in  ten  minutes  most  of  the  footings 
which  Parisians  say  can  be  footed  in  ten  minutes 

316 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

one  would  need  legs  at  least  twenty  feet  long  and 
would  have  to  run  more  than  three  quarters  of  the 
way. 

Those  drab  and  morose  figures  that  fish  eternally 
up  and  down  the  banks  of  the  Seine  are  the  leading 
exemplars  of  the  facts  that  hope  springs  eternal 
within  the  human  breast  and  that  Paris  may  smile 
but  that  she  doesn't  forget.  Probably  all  of  these 
fishermen  have  heard  a  report  that  somebody  once 
caught  a  fish  in  the  Seine.  In  fact,  I  myself  know  a 
newspaper  man  who  knows  a  newspaper  man  who 
is  said  to  have  seen  a  fisherman  walking  proudly 
home  along  the  quays  of  Paris  with  a  fish  seven 
inches  long  which  he  had  taken  from  the  Seine  after 
years  of  patient  endeavor.  He  was  followed  by  a 
cheering  crowd,  and  ever  and  anon  a  brother  fisher- 
man came  up  from  the  river  bank  to  kiss  the  success- 
ful hero  and  to  fondle  his  prize.  According  to  the 
rumor,  all  the  fins  and  most  of  the  tail  of  the  fish 
were  worn  off  by  the  repeated  handling.  This  may 
or  may  not  be  true.  The  fisherman  may  have  bought 
the  fish,  or  he  may  have  stolen  somebody's  pet  gold- 
fish in  order  to  create  a  sensation.  I  have  watched 
hundreds  of  these  Seine  fishermen  and  questioned 
many  of  them,  but  I  never  ran  across  one  who  had  a 
fish  on  his  person. 

There  is  little  doubt  that  one  of  the  reasons  why 
the  Emperor  Julian  was  so  riotously  enthusiastic 
about  Paris  back  in  the  fourth  century  was  the  tasty 
manner  in  which  his  Parisian  cook  served  up  the 
meals.  If  Julian  should  come  back  to  earth  to-day 
I  rather  fancy  he  would  hunt  up  the  nearest  police- 
man and  ask  him  whether  that  little  restaurant  that 

317 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

specialized  in  fillets  of  sole  Marguery  was  still  doing 
business.  And  the  policeman  woidd  curl  his  mus- 
tache and  flirt  his  little  white  baton  in  the  air  and 
reply  that  it  was  a  ten-minute  walk  by  way  of  the 
Pont  Neuf.  Then  Julian,  I  like  to  think,  would 
ask  about  the  place  that  used  to  specialize  in  snails 
with  chopped  onions;  and  the  one  that  invented 
haeuj  d,  la  mode;  and  the  one  that  made  the  chiffonade 
dressing  that  would  put  your  eye  out ;  and  the  little 
place  that  made  pressed  duck  famous ;  and  the  hole 
in  the  wall  where  they  used  to  build  a  Mocha  cake 
with  a  frosting  two  inches  thick.  When  he  paused 
to  swallow  hard,  because  of  the  moisture  with  which 
the  mere  mention  of  these  delicacies  filled  his  mouth, 
the  policeman  would  also  swallow  hard  and  point 
north,  south,  east,  and  west  with  his  little  white 
baton  and  assure  Julian  that  every  one  of  them  was 
still  doing  business  and  that  it  was  only  a  ten- 
minute  walk  to  whichever  one  he  cared  to  visit. 

Whether  her  cooks  try  with  horse  meat,  frogs' 
legs,  snails,  or  the  more  conventional  foods,  such 
as  ceujs  and  bifteck,  they  perform  great  feats  with  the 
aid  of  sauces.  The  cooks  of  Merrie  England  are 
masters  of  the  art  of  making  anything  taste  like 
nothing,  but  the  cooks  of  that  dear  Paris  are  adepts 
at  making  nothing  taste  like  something.  Given  a 
piece  of  ancient  carpet  or  the  remnants  of  a  McClel- 
lan  saddle,  they  can  lard  it  with  fat  and  soak  it  in 
oil  and  season  it  and  garnish  it  and  explode  its 
tissues  and  rub  it  with  garlic  and  cook  it  with 
several  mysterious  matters  for  hours  and  then  serve 
it  with  a  dark-brown  sauce  that  makes  one  burst 
into  low  but  ecstatic  moans,  and  one  will  be  as 

318 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

contented  with  it  as  though  he  were  eating  the 
choicest  products  of  a  game  preserve. 

And  the  snails!  Ah  out!  The  snails!  The  Pa- 
risians have  been  known  to  consume  as  many  as 
seventy  tons  of  snails  in  one  day.  There  must  be 
at  least  thirty  snails  to  a  pound,  and  it  is  a  generally 
accepted  fact  that  there  are  two  thousand  pounds 
to  a  ton.  Yet  the  simple  and  tireless  Parisians  do 
away  with  seventy  of  those  tons  in  one  day.  My 
faith!    Not  to  say  Mon  Dieu! 

I  asked  French  friends  about  the  snail.  "W^at 
does  it  taste  like,  then?  And  is  it  not  a  repellent 
viand — yes,  no?  Exasperated  cries  rent  the  air  at 
these  questions.  Sacred  and  a  couple  of  sacred 
blues!  Had  I  never  tasted  the  snail?  Ziit,  then! 
It  would  be  necessary  that  I  partake  immediately. 
So  we  went  forth  upon  the  boulevards  and  strolled 
past  the  bead-bag  shops,  and  the  near-jewelry  shops 
with  the  rhinestone  buckles,  and  the  almost-tortoise- 
shell  in  the  windows,  and  the  lingerie  shops,  and  the 
shops  that  sell  suggestive  books.  We  worked  over 
into  the  better  districts,  where  the  perfumery  palaces 
exude  odors  which  make  those  of  Araby  the  Blest 
smell  like  a  bunch  of  dried  grass,  and  where  the 
jewelry  shops  blaze  with  diamonds  large  enough  to 
place  beneath  hens  for  the  purpose  of  stimulating 
them  to  produce  something  similar  in  size,  and 
where  the  dressmaking  establishments  bear  names  as 
familiar  as  those  of  any  of  humanity's  benefactors, 
not  excluding  Madame  Curie,  John  Stuart  Mill,  or 
PhilHps  Brooks.  Such,  as  the  more  profound 
thinkers  are  wont  to  remark,  is  life. 

And  at  length  we  came  to  our  restaurant,  fronting 
319 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

on  the  stream  of  traffic  which  threatened  momen- 
tarily to  inundate  the  careless  gendarme  with  his 
little  imperial  who  stood  waving  his  little  white 
baton  at  the  retrouss^  hoods  of  the  Marne  taxicabs. 
Outside  the  restaurant  all  Paris  was  laughing,  but 
inside  everyone  was  giving  his  undivided  attention 
to  the  highly  important  question  of  ordering  his 
meal  and  eating  it. 

This  is  a  very  serious  matter  with  the  Parisian. 
He  thinks  nothing  of  devoting  half  an  hour  to  the 
mere  consideration  of  what  to  eat.  He  goes  into 
repeated  conferences  with  the  waiter,  and  frequently 
the  head  waiter  and  manager  are  summoned  in 
order  to  pass  on  some  delicate  point,  such  as  whether 
an  omelet  with  Perigord  truffles  should  be  prepared 
in  olive  oil,  according  to  the  Provence  school  of 
cooking,  or  in  goose  fat,  according  to  the  Bordeaux 
school.  This,  it  may  well  be  believed,  is  a  situation 
which  calls  for  the  most  profound  thought  and  the 
rarest  judgment.  Ah  out!  For  if  anything  happens 
so  that  the  omelet  goes  wrong,  everyone's  entire 
day  will  be  ruined. 

If  a  Frenchman  is  giving  a  lunch  and  one  of  the 
dishes  isn't  good  the  host's  first  thought  is  of  suicide. 
Life  is  no  longer  worth  living.  You  think  I  jest? 
Look  you:  There  was  a  person  named  Vatel,  who 
was  steward  to  the  Prince  of  Cond6.  The  king  was 
coming  to  dinner  with  the  prince  and  Vatel  had 
ordered  the  food.  Everything  came  except  the 
fish.  Dinner  time  drew  on  and  still  the  fish  came 
not.  The  king  arrived.  No  fish!  Mon  Dieu! 
Sacr^  nom  d'un  chien!  Name  of  a  name  of  a  name 
of  a  name  of  a  name!    The  dinner  started.     There 

320 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

was  no  fish.  Vatel,  responsible  for  this  awful  thing, 
went  out  in  the  garden  and  fell  on  his  sword.  Death 
before  dishonor!     Ah  ouil 

My  French  friends  had  a  perfectly  terrible  time 
over  the  wine.  The  waiter  was  warned  not  to  bring 
it  too  cold.  He  was  told  explicitly  and  about  eight 
different  times  that  it  must  not  be  too  cold.  When 
it  came  on,  resting  on  its  side  in  its  little  basket, 
my  host  seized  it  and  felt  it  all  over.  Ciel!  Name 
of  a  name!  How  about  that  temperature,  Jean? 
Cold,  what?  Has  that  imbecile,  that  descendant  of 
a  race  of  imbeciles,  brought  it  too  cold?  But  yes! 
Oh,  Dieu!  Clouds  gathered  over  the  party.  The 
waiter  was  summoned.  The  storm  burst.  What 
had  he  done,  then?  Why  must  he  ruin  the  lives  of 
persons  who  had  not  harmed  him  ?  That  wine  there ! 
Oh,  oh,  oh,  oh !  Sacred  name  of  a  green  pig !  What 
horror!  Away  with  it,  creature!  Repair  the  dam- 
age if  it  is  possible! 

Yes,  if  anything  goes  wrong  at  a  French  repast 
there's  liable  to  be  a  scene. 

When  the  snails  were  brought  on  my  every  move 
was  watched  with  intense  eagerness.  If  I  had 
found  the  snails  not  good,  all  would  have  been  lost. 
One  of  my  hosts  would  have  beaten  the  proprietor  to 
death  and  set  fire  to  the  restaurant,  while  the  other 
would  have  gone  out  and  insulted  the  chef  most 
foully  and  set  him  to  stew  in  one  of  his  own  stew- 
pans.     But  I  found  them  good  and  all  was  well. 

The  French  snail  is  a  trifle  larger  than  an  English 
walnut.  There  are  farms  for  them  in  France.  About 
half  a  million  first-quality  snails  are  raised  on  an 
acre.    They  are  fed  once  a  day  on  cabbages  and  on 

321 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

bran  soaked  in  wine.  They  are  cooked  in  various 
ways,  but  the  school  which  advocates  filling  the 
shell  with  a  sauce  made  of  chopped  onions,  pepper, 
a  very  mild  vinegar,  and  olive  oil  is  probably  in  the 
lead.  One  clutches  each  shell  with  a  pair  of  small 
tongs,  plunges  a  long  two-tined  fork  into  it,  and 
hauls  the  snail  gently  from  his  lodging.  It's  a  good 
dish — somewhat  leathery,  but  good.  Those  who 
shudder  at  eating  snails,  but  who  devour  such  foods 
as  raw  oysters  and  ripe  Roquefort  cheese  without  a 
quiver,  are  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  Parisian. 

The  restaurants  of  Paris  seem  very  inexpensive  to 
Americans  just  now.  At  Duval's — the  cheap  chain 
restaurants — one  can  have  an  excellent  lunch  of,  say, 
a  soup,  an  omelet,  two  vegetables,  bread  and  butter, 
a  bottle  of  white  wine,  a  salad,  a  pat  of  delicious 
cream  cheese,  a  large  saucer  of  jam,  and  coffee  for 
8  or  9  francs,  which  is  between  75  and  90  cents. 
Or  one  can  roll  over  to  one  of  the  more  expensive 
restaurants  and  have  a  dinner  for  two  people  with 
a  bottle  of  fine  wine  for  $5. 

It  is  an  affecting  spectacle  to  see  an  American 
fresh  from  America  receive  his  first  bottle  of  wine 
in  a  Parisian  cafe.  He  does  everything  but  kiss  the 
bottle.  And  by  the  time  he  has  finished  with  it  he  is 
usually  shedding  bitter  tears  over  the  piteous  con- 
dition of  the  people  in  America,  where  prohibition 
is  in  force,  so  that  everyone  has  to  drink  very  bad 
liquor,  which  is  more  than  apt  to  poison  him  severely 
or  drive  him  to  some  insane  excess.  These  things 
seem  cheap  to  Americans,  I  repeat,  but  they  don't 
seem  so  cheap  to  the  French,  for  the  9  francs  which 
look  like  90  cents  to  an  American  look  like  $1.80  to 

32? 


THE   MYSTERIES   OF   PARIS 

a  Frenchman,  for  he  figures  a  franc  still  to  be  worth 
20  cents.     It  is  an  odd  situation. 

Since  the  Frenchman  figures  the  value  of  the  franc 
at  20  cents  instead  of  at  10  cents  or  less,  some  very 
choice  parcels  of  real  estate  may  be  picked  up  at 
half  price — from  our  standpoint.  I  mention  this 
fact  because  our  Embassy  and  our  Consulate  in 
Paris  bear  about  the  same  relation  to  the  Embassies 
and  Consulates  of  other  nations  that  a  dog  house 
bears  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Fine  Arts. 
That  simile  may  be  a  trifle  stretched,  but  not  much. 
The  United  States  to-day  has  the  respect  and  the 
sometimes  unwilling  admiration  of  every  nation  in 
the  world.  It  is  the  world's  greatest  financial  power. 
Yet  our  diplomats  and  our  consular  agents  are 
wretchedly  underpaid  and  our  Embassies  and  our 
Consulates  are  located  in  rented  buildings  on  frowzy 
and  undesirable  streets.  We  financed  the  AlHes  in 
the  war,  but  our  legislators  for  some  dark  and  ab- 
struse reason  refuse  to  finance  our  own  representa- 
tives in  the  proper  manner. 

Paris  has  never  been  able  to  forget  her  telephone 
system.  I  am  very  fond  of  Paris  and  I  like  the 
Parisians.  I  would  not  for  the  world  hurt  their 
feelings.  I  hope  that  they  will  realize  that  I  am 
casting  no  aspersions  on  the  French  nation  or  the 
French  people  when  I  say  that  the  French  telephone 
is  a  very  awful  thing.  One  shouts  "alio"  into 
it  by  the  hour  without  getting  any  results  at  all. 
All  Americans  in  Paris  assured  me  that  every  for- 
eigner used  the  same  methods  when  he  was  par- 
ticularly anxious  to  speak  with  a  man.  He  first 
spent  half  an  hour  trying  to  telephone,  working  him- 

323 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

self  into  a  terrible  rage  which  threw  his  digestive 
apparatus  into  disorder  and  probably  deducted  a 
few  years  from  his  Ufe.  Then  he  put  on  his  hat  and 
coat,  flung  himself  downstairs,  hunted  up  a  taxicab, 
went  to  see  the  man  in  person,  and  found  that  he  had 
gone  out.  Some  people  are  urging  a  law  which  will 
make  it  compulsory  to  do  away  with  all  telephones 
and  rely  entirely  on  messengers  and  telegrams.  As 
I  have  remarked  elsewhere,  however,  the  French  are 
a  simple  and  a  tireless  people,  and  I  am  sure  that 
they  will  demonstrate  their  tirelessness  by  con- 
tinuing to  telephone. 

The  Parisians  have  one  jest,  or  wheeze,  round 
which  all  their  comic  papers,  their  farces,  and  their 
musical  comedies  live  and  move  and  have  their 
being.  They  never  forget  it  for  a  moment  and 
they  are  tireless  in  their  use  of  it.  I  don't  know 
whether  there  were  any  comic  papers  in  Paris  when 
the  Emperor  Julian  was  in  control,  but  if  there  were 
they  were  founded  solely  on  this  one  jest.  Every 
time  it  appears  in  a  French  farce  the  audience 
shrieks  with  laughter.  Men,  women,  and  children 
of  the  tenderest  years  all  find  it  deliciously  amusing. 
Eliminate  that  one  jape  and  an  enormous  number  of 
French  plays  and  magazines  would  be  forced  out  of 
business. 

And  beards !  The  Parisians  have  never  forgotten 
their  penchant  for  raising  magnificent  beards. 
Though  the  Russians  have  built  up  a  great  reputa- 
tion for  beard  production,  they  are  the  veriest  tyros 
beside  the  Parisians.  The  Parisian  beard  is  not 
just  something  which  is  permitted  to  grow  on  the 
chin.     It  is  a  work  of  art;    a  carefully  cultivated, 

324 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

nobly  planned,  artistically  developed,  richly  nourished 
thicket.  It  is  pruned,  of  course,  in  various  shapes, 
but  the  favorite  shape  is  the  chatelaine-bag,  or  hay- 
stack, variety.  It  spreads  out  in  a  gorgeous  black 
mass,  concealing  the  collar,  the  cravat,  and  the  open- 
ing at  the  top  of  the  vest.  In  many  ways  it  is 
reminiscent  of  the  Imperial  Valley  of  California, 
where  the  farmers  are  reputed  to  raise  nine  crops  a 
year.  The  amount  of  care  expended  on  these  beards 
daily  is  enormous,  and  as  a  rule  no  Parisian  permits 
himself  to  have  one  unless  he  is  in  a  position  to 
spend  at  least  an  hour  every  morning  currycombing 
it,  trimming  the  edges  with  a  pair  of  pruning  shears, 
and  going  over  and  over  it  with  an  oily  rag  to  make 
it  shine. 

Readers  of  the  works  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
will  recall  that  in  certain  of  the  South  Sea  Islands 
one  of  the  most  valuable  forms  of  currency  was  old 
men's  beards.  If  a  few  glossy-black  Parisian  beards 
could  have  been  exported  to  the  South  Seas  the  bot- 
tom would  have  fallen  out  of  the  South  Sea  rate  of 
exchange  with  a  deafening  crash,  and  an  old  man's 
beard  which  would  once  have  purchased  an  entire 
farm  would  have  been  insufficient  to  buy  a  pack  of 
carrots.  The  Parisian  beard  makes  every  other 
beard  look  like  thirty  hellers  in  Austrian  money, 
which  is  about  the  low-water  mark  of  worthlessness, 
unless  one  wishes  to  quibble,  in  which  case  it  could 
be  said  that  twenty-five  hellers  in  Austrian  money  is 
even  lower. 

Paris  has  always  had  a  reputation  for  nocturnal 
gayety.  Supposedly  she  has  always  been  the  wildest 
of  the  European  cities.    As  a  matter  of  fact,   I 

32s 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

think  tJhere  is  scarcely  a  European  city  which  isn't 
wilder.  This  is  particularly  so  at  present,  for  Paris 
is  observing  the  regulations  and  closing  up  like  a 
clam  at  half  past  eleven.  Berlin,  on  the  contrary, 
pretends  to  live  up  to  the  regulations  which  the  coal 
shortage  requires,  but  doesn't  do  it.  Paris  behaves 
herself  and  Berlin  runs  wild. 

It  is  a  pleasant  thing  for  the  world  at  large  that 
Paris  isn't  forgetful.  The  things  which  she  remem- 
bers are  usually  pleasant  when  the  memory  lingers 
on  them,  but  there  is  one  notable  exception.  If  she 
could  forget  her  system — or  at  least  nine  tenths  of 
her  system — of  making  every  visitor  in  Paris  appear 
at  the  Prefecture  of  Police  in  order  to  get  a  police 
permit  to  leave  the  country  she  would  make  the 
world  a  less  profane  place  in  which  to  live.  As  things 
were  arranged  last  winter,  a  person  could  get  a  card 
of  identity  and  a  passport  vis^  entitling  him  to  leave 
the  country  by  spending  an  entire  day  at  the 
Prefecture  of  Police  in  person.  One  had  to  have  an 
identity  card  in  order  to  stay  in  Paris.  And  one 
had  to  have  a  vis^  to  get  out.  A  brilliant  idea  oc- 
curred to  me.  I  would  refuse  to  take  out  an  iden- 
tity card,  and  when  I  was  ready  to  leave  the  country 
I  would  hunt  up  a  policeman  and  tell  him  that  my 
identity  card  was  not.  Then  they  would  eject  me 
from  the  country.  Fortunately  I  learned  just  in 
time  that  my  failure  to  have  a  card  would  have 
cost  me  a  little  matter  of  four  or  five  hundred  francs 
and  that  I  would  then  have  to  stay  in  France  until 
I  got  one. 

The  Prefecture  of  Police  is  a  ten-minute  walk,  of 
course.     Most  of  the  places  in  it,  moreover,  are  ten- 

326 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PAIIIS 

minute  walks  from  one  another.  The  chief  desire 
of  the  officials  in  the  Prefecture  of  Police  when  issuing 
a  card  of  identity  seems  to  be  to  discover  where 
the  suspected  foreigner  was  bom.  They  lay  great 
stress  on  it.  The  spade-bearded  person  who  cross- 
examined  me  was  greatly  intrigued  by  learning  that 
I  was  bom  in  Kennebunk,  Maine.  He  wrote  it 
down  Kehnebonque,  Mainz.  I  assume  that  this  in- 
formation in  this  particular  form  will  be  of  extreme 
value  to  the  French  authorities.  He  put  it  all  down 
in  a  large  ledger,  and  he  seemed  so  eager  for  all 
possible  information  that  I  persuaded  him  to  write 
down  also  that  I  was  born  in  a  house  whose  barn  has 
an  elm  tree  growing  out  of  it.  He  had  to  get  an 
interpreter  in  order  to  get  it  all  straight  and  we  all 
got  very  excited  trying  to  catch  one  another's  drift. 
I  think  that  the  vital  information  about  the  tree 
now  appears  correctly  on  the  French  records. 

The  real  tribulations,  however,  arrive  when  one 
sets  out  to  get  a  vis^.  Visitors  to  this  particular 
part  of  the  Prefecture  of  Police  are  received  from 
nine  until  twelve  o'clock  and  from  fourteen  to  six- 
teen o'clock.  If  one  gets  caught  in  a  jam  between 
nine  and  twelve  he  has  to  stick  right  there  until 
the  employees  come  back  at  fourteen,  or  even  until 
quarter  past  fourteen,  unless  he  wants  the  job  to 
spoil  two  days  instead  of  one.  All  of  the  passport 
officials  are  excitable.  One  goes  to  Staircase  D, 
where  three  underlings  smell  of  one's  passport  and 
look  at  it  upside  down,  and  then  with  wild  shouts 
and  hand  wavings  instruct  one  to  proceed  to  another 
underling  at  the  end  of  the  corridor. 

After  waiting  one  hour  for  this  underling  one  finds 
327 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

that  his  only  job  is  to  clutch  his  head  with  his  hand 
despairingly  and  tell  one  to  go  over  to  Porte  B. 
At  Porte  B  one  waits  patiently  and  finally  gets  the 
ear  of  an  official.  Ah  oui!  Le  passeport!  Well,  it 
is  not  exactly  his  job.  Rest  ici,  then,  and  soon  some 
one  will  appear. 

So  one  waits,  and  at  the  end  of  another  hour  some 
one  with  a  spreading  black  beard  indeed  appears. 
He  enters  notes  on  Kehnebonque,  Mainz,  in  various 
ledgers,  shouting  excited  orders  to  a  corps  of  as- 
sistants while  doing  so.  Then  after  mislaying  a 
couple  of  priceless  documents  and  almost  going  mad 
with  perturbation,  he  gets  out  a  battery  of  rubber 
stamps  and  begins  firing  at  will,  in  addition  to 
starting  an  intelligence  section  hunting  through  the 
filefe  in  order  to  find  out  whether  a  person  living  in  a 
house  whose  barn  has  a  tree  growing  out  of  it  is  of 
any  immediate  menace  to  the  French  Republic. 
And  at  about  five  minutes  before  sixteen,  when  one 
is  on  the  verge  of  assaulting  some  one  with  extreme 
ferocity  and  violence,  one  gets  his  vis^. 

The  Parisians  moan  with  horror  over  the  vis^ 
situation.  They  claim  that  the  recent  decrease  in 
the  death  rate  is  due  entirely  to  the  difficulties  of 
getting  passports  to  the  Great  Beyond. 

At  the  Prefecture  of  Police  one  encounters  all  the 
emigrants  from  Poland  and  other  Central  European 
countries  who  are  heading  for  America.  Poland  is 
furnishing  the  bulk  of  those  who  pass  through  Paris, 
and  more  than  90  per  cent  of  them  are  Hebrews. 
All  of  them  have  suffered  incredible  hardships  in 
coming  as  far  as  Paris,  due  to  the  frightful  travel 
conditions   in  Central   Europe.     I   talked    with   a 

328 


THE  MYSTERIES  OF  PARIS 

number  of  them  and,  though  they  showed  no  in- 
clination to  turn  back  themselves,  they  were  strongly 
of  the  opinion  that  anyone  who  tried  to  travel  any- 
where at  the  present  time  was  in  for  the  most  harrow- 
ing experience  of  his  life.  Their  appearance  tended 
to  bear  out  their  statements,  for  their  clothes  were 
in  such  shape  as  to  be  of  slight  economic  interest 
except  to  a  rag  collector,  while  the  odor  which  clung 
to  them  was  of  the  sort  which  is  usually  described  as 
strong  enough  to  knock  you  over.  It  really  wasn't 
strong  enough  to  do  that,  but  it  was  sufficiently 
powerful  to  make  almost  anyone  a  bit  ill. 

The  French  themselves  are  not  emigrating  to 
America  this  year,  or  next  year,  or  in  any  of  the 
next  few  years,  so  far  as  it  is  possible  to  learn. 
There  is  plenty  of  work  for  them  to  do  in  France, 
and  they  seem  to  want  to  stay  there  and  do  it.  In 
every  other  country  in  the  world,  apparently,  the 
rank  and  file  of  the  people  have  but  one  all-powerful 
desire.  They  want  to  emigrate.  They  want  to 
emigrate  to  America  if  they  can,  but  almost  any 
place  will  do.  France  is  the  single  exception. 
People  in  Paris  who  have  studied  the  matter  deeply 
declare  that  if  all  war-time  restrictions  were  removed 
to-morrow  so  that  eniigrants  could  enter  the  United 
States  as  freely  as  in  1 914,  France  would  send  us  not 
more  than  half  the  small  number  which  she  sent  us 
yearly  before  the  war. 

Paris  smiles,  as  I  have  remarked  before,  but  she 
doesn't  forget.  Just  at  present  she  seems  to  be 
doing  her  best  to  forget  that  she  ever  loved  the 
American  army,  but  she  won't  forget  it,  any  more 
than  she  has  forgotten  all  the  other  things.    And  she 

329 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

won't  forget  that  Germany  wanted  to  take  her  in  a 
Prussian  grip  and  squeeze  her  to  the  point  of  death, 
and  was  on  the  verge  of  doing  it.  She  will  also  bear 
in  mind  that  Germany  will  try  it  again  in  only  a  few 
years,  as  years  go.  If  she  seems  a  trifle  hard  on  some 
of  her  neighbors  at  this  writing  it's  because  she 
remembers  what  her  neighbors  planned  to  do — and 
what  they  will  once  more  attempt  to  do  when  the 
time  is  ripe. 

Heigh-ho!  Those  snub-nosed  taxicabs,  and  the 
Eiffel  Tower  rising  out  of  the  gray  mists  of  early 
morning!  Those  bead  bags  and  that  glittering  imi- 
tation jewelry!  Those  boulevards,  golden  in  the 
afternoon  sunlight !  Those  exciting  odors  of  strange 
and  wonderful  perfumes!  Those  neat  and  Gallic 
maidens  with  the  snapping  black  eyes  which  roam 
and  roam!  Those  beards!  Those  cooking!  Those 
wine !    That  dear  Paris !    Ah  ouil 


VII 

MERRIE  ENGLAND 

THE  tall,  fair-haired  Englishman,  who  was 
always  the  hero  of  the  paper-backed  novels 
which  existed  in  such  profusion  during  the  hair- 
cloth-furniture era,  had  certain  unmistakable  sym- 
bols which  stamped  him  as  a  representative  English- 
man. Just  as  Mercury  can  always  be  identified  by 
his  winged  derby  and  his  snake- twined  shillalah, 
and  just  as  the  combination  of  a  portly  man,  side 
whiskers,  a  silk  hat,  a  white  vest,  gray  spats,  and  a 
cane,  represents  a  banker  to  people  who  should 
know  better,  even  so  could  the  hero  of  the  old  novel 
be  unerringly  spotted  by  a  half-witted  infant  because 
of  certain  things.  Firstly,  he  was  fair-haired,  as  I 
remember  it,  and  his  hair  had  an  inclination  to  be 
curly.  When  the  author  of  the  book  wanted  to  be 
excessively  licentious  and  daring  a  passage  would  be 
introduced  in  which  the  heroine  longed  to  stroke  the 
hero's  curly  head  and  even  run  her  fingers  through 
his  hair.  At  one  time  that  was  thought  to  be 
about  as  raw  as  a  row  of  asterisks  subsequently 
came  to  be  considered.  Secondly,  in  addition  to 
being  fair-haired  he  waltzed  divinely.  I  am  un- 
familiar with  the  sort  of  dancing  which  obtains  in 
22  331 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

divine  circles,  but  I  have  always  taken  it  for  granted 
that  when  the  authors  of  the  paper-backed  novels 
referred  to  divine  waltzing  they  had  private  in- 
formation which  made  it  possible  for  them  to  speak 
with  authority  as  to  what  did  and  did  not  constitute 
divineness.  Thirdly,  his  name  was  Charles.  Not 
always,  but  usually.  And  fourthly,  he  took  a  cold 
tub  in  the  morning.  The  last  never  failed.  He 
may  have  been  named  Edward  and  had  fair  hair 
and  waltzed  divinely ;  but  he  took  a  cold  bath  in  the 
morning.  His  hair  may  have  been  dark  as  a  raven's 
wing,  and  his  name  may  have  been  Charles,  and  his 
waltzing  may  have  been  divine,  but  he  never  dodged 
his  cold  tub.  The  author  always  came  up  to  scratch 
on  that  point.  As  soon  as  you  ran  across  a  man 
who  admitted  having  taken  a  cold  tub  in  one  of 
those  paper-backed  novels  you  could  be  sure  that 
he  was  the  hero  and  an  Englishman,  and  that  he 
would  propose  to  the  girl  while  waltzing  divinely  to 
the  strains  of  "The  Beautiful  Blue  Danube." 

No  mention  was  ever  made  in  those  books  of  an 
Englishman  who  took  a  hot  tub.  That  wasn't  done. 
Evidently  the  taking  of  a  hot  tub  was  such  a  dis- 
graceful affair  that  it  couldn't  be  mentioned  in  any 
decent  book.  No  matter  how  low  and  vile  the  vil- 
lain may  have  been,  he  was  never  accused  of  taking 
a  hot  tub.  Nothing  whatever  was  said  about  the 
villain's  baths,  so  that  the  readers  were  at  liberty 
to  think  that  he  didn't  wash  at  all.  Evidently  no 
bath  was  thought  to  be  better  than  a  hot  one. 

At  any  rate,  the  impression  which  these  books  con- 
veyed concerning  desirable  Englishmen  was  that 
they  took  cold  baths  every  morning.     The  books 

332 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

never  went  into  details  as  to  why  desirable  English- 
men took  cold  baths.  This,  it  would  seem,  was  a 
great  mistake  if  the  books  really  aimed  at  giving 
their  readers  an  insight  into  the  English  people.  A 
moment's  thought  will  prove  to  anyone  that  this  is 
so.  One's  inclination  may  be  to  deny  it  hotly. 
One  may  declare  that  the  people  who  take  cold 
baths  every  morning  are  a  tough,  hardy  race,  capable 
of  enduring  great  punishment  without  weakening, 
that  this  characterizes  the  English  people  com- 
pletely, and  that  we  need  not  go  more  deeply  into 
the  subject.  The  matter,  however,  is  more  profound 
than  this. 

For  example,  not  all  Englishmen  ^ake  cold  baths, 
any  more  than  all  Englishmen  wear  monocles  and 
spats,  and  ejaculate,  "Haw!  Haw!"  every  three 
minutes  with  unfailing  regularity.  Yet  behind  all 
Englishmen  there  is  some  force  which  impels  them 
to  take  cold  baths  in  the  morning.  It  is  not  the  cold 
bath  which  makes  the  Englishman  tough  and  hardy, 
but  the  impelling  force  which  he  does  not  always 
obey. 

The  Englishman,  I  am  sure,  will  attempt  to  say 
me  nay  in  this.  He  will  attempt  to  pass  it  off  with 
a  light  laugh  and  an  embarrassed  shrug.  He  will 
doubtless  declare  that  I  am  spoofing.  All  his  nays 
and  all  his  light  laughs,  none  the  less,  cannot  change 
me.  I  am  not  a  spoof er  by  nature  or  by  adoption. 
I  would  not  recognize  a  spoof  if  it  came  up  to  me 
on  the  street  and  looked  deep  into  my  eyes.  No, 
I  am  not  spoofing.  I  have  spent  many  long  hours 
in  England,  and  I  have  thought  over  the  matter 
seriously,  and  I  have  found  out  what  it  is  that  impels 

333 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER' 

Englishmen  to  take  cold  baths,  and  why  it  is  that 
they  are  tough  and  hardy.  It  is  something  that 
was  never  mentioned  in  the  old  paper-backed  novels 
that  spoke  so  lightly  of  the  fair-haired  hero  Charles 
who  waltzed  so  divinely  to  the  strains  of  "The 
Beautiful  Blue  Danube." 

To  get  down  to  facts,  it  was  the  cold.  It  was  the 
cold,  I  repeat,  and  it  is  the  cold.  I  have  sat  and 
thought  about  this  thing  in  many  a  hotel  room  in 
Merrie  England  during  the  winter  season,  wearing 
a  thick  overcoat  and  heavy  woolen  gloves  and  a 
hat  with  flaps  that  came  down  over  my  ears. 
Thoughts  have  always  flitted  rapidly  through  my 
head  at  such  times,  probably  due  to  the  fact  that  no 
thought  was  willing  to  stay  in  such  a  chilly  place 
for  any  length  of  time.  Chief  among  them  was  the 
thought  that  one  could  be  far  more  comfortable  in 
Siberia  in  the  winter  than  in  England.  Then  there 
was  the  thought  about  where  that  Merrie-England 
stuff  came  from.  It  certainly  never  came  from 
anyone  who  had  to  spend  more  than  a  couple  of 
hours  in  an  Enghsh  hotel  in  the  winter;  for  it's 
about  as  merry  as  the  average  storage  warehouse. 
Pursuing  this  thought  closely  was  the  thought  about 
cold  baths.  Water  can  never  fall  below  a  certain 
temperature  without  freezing;  whereas  nothing  will 
happen  to  the  air  in  a  room,  even  though  its  tem- 
perature falls  too  low  for  words.  Too  low  for 
words  is  a  description  of  the  air  in  an  English  room 
during  the  winter  months,  and  especially  the  months 
of  last  winter.  Even  the  coldest  water  was  warmer 
than  a  moderately  chilly  English  room.  A  cold  bath 
felt  deliciously  warm  to  an  Englishman  who  had 

334 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

just  emerged  from  his  bed  into  the  numbing  air  of 
his  chamber.  There,  I  think,  is  the  secret  of  the 
EngHshman's  cold  tub.  He  takes  it  to  get  warm.  It 
is  not  the  cold  tub  which  makes  him  tough  and 
hardy  and  a  glutton  for  endurance,  but  the  bitter, 
intense  cold  which  surrounds  him  during  the  winter. 
Thousands  and  thousands  of  Englishmen  have  come 
home  from  the  war  with  their  strength  quite  sapped 
by  the  warm,  comfortable  life  which  they  led  in  the 
cozy  dugouts  and  funk  holes  of  the  front-line 
trenches.  In  all  their  lives  they  had  never  been  so 
comfortable.  They  cannot  accustom  themselves 
to  the  rigors  of  an  English  winter,  and  they  con- 
stantly write  letters  to  the  newspapers  about  it. 

English  homes  and  hotels  are  not  built  for  warmth 
even  under  the  best  winter  conditions.  A  large 
regal  chamber  containing  vast  quantities  of  marble- 
topped  tables  and  morose-looking  black-walnut 
furniture  will  boast  a  fireplace  fourteen  inches 
wide  and  eighteen  inches  high.  Sometimes  coal  is 
burned,  and  sometimes  wood.  When  coal  is  used  a 
matter  of  four  pieces  are  brought  out  tenderly  and 
regretfully  and  laid  with  gentle  hands  upon  the 
shivering  flames.  From  the  manner  in  which  a 
piece  of  coal  is  sacrificed  on  an  English  fire  an 
onlooker  has  the  uncomfortable  feeling  that  the 
person  who  put  it  on  is  going  to  burst  into  tears 
because  it  is  burning.  He  seems  to  regard  each 
piece  of  coal  as  a  near,  dear,  and  innocent  friend  who 
is  being  burned  at  the  stake,  though  guiltless  of  all 
wrongdoing.  So,  at  least,  it  has  always  appeared 
to  me.  And  the  same  thing  applies  to  firewood.  An 
Englishman  has  always  seemed  to  me  to  be  as  gen- 

335 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

erous  with  his  firewood  as  though  each  stick  were  a 
valuable  heirloom,  and  as  though  he  had  promised 
his  dying  father  not  to  part  with  it  unless  driven  to 
it  by  necessity's  spur.  As  a  result  of  all  this  the 
average  English  fire  has  about  the  same  heating 
effect  on  a  large  room  as  the  luminous  dial  of  a  wrist 
watch  would  have. 

In  several  parts  of  London  the  streets  were  being 
repaired  and  the  old  wooden  paving  blocks  were 
being  replaced  with  new  ones.  The  old  blocks  were 
piled  up  along  the  curb,  and  every  night  during  the 
still  small  hours  shadowy  and  furtive  figures  would 
sneak  up  to  the  block  piles  and  gather  up  a  load.  I 
found  one  American  who  had  sent  out  his  office  boy 
at  midnight  every  night  for  a  couple  of  weeks  to 
gather  up  paving  blocks.  He  had  venerable  paving 
blocks  under  his  bed,  in  his  bureau  drawers,  and  in 
his  closets.  There  were  also  a  few  in  his  trunks. 
He  was  managing  to  keep  fairly  warm. 

The  naturally  chilly  situation  was  rendered  even 
more  acute,  and  the  conventional  cheer  and  merriness 
of  an  English  winter  were  greatly  enhanced  by  the 
coal  shortage,  which  caused  only  one  lump  of  coal  to 
linger  where  two  might  formerly  have  been  observed. 
When  an  English  fire  is  cut  down  by  one  half  it 
becomes  an  uproarious  burlesque  on  the  accepted 
idea  of  a  fire.  In  many  cases,  however,  the  English 
have  not  been  content  with  cutting  their  fires  in 
half.  They  have  gone  so  far  as  to  eliminate  them 
entirely. 

The  hotels  in  order  to  save  coal  refused  to  permit 
fires  or  electric  heaters  in  any  room  unless  the  guest 
could  produce  a  doctor's  certificate  stating  that  he 

336 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

was  ill  and  must  have  a  fire.  The  hotel  doctors  plied 
a  thriving  trade  in  certificates  of  illness.  The  price 
of  being  ill  enough  to  have  a  fire  was  standard  at 
one  pound,  though  a  number  of  overanxious  physi- 
cians cut  the  price  to  fifteen  shillings,  and  even  to 
ten  shillings.  This  was  not  considered  just  the 
thing  to  do  in  medical  circles,  however,  and  the  most 
reliable  physicians  refused  to  find  traces  of  illness  for 
less  than  one  pound.  In  one  of  the  London  hotels 
was  a  rather  venerable  American  woman  with  a 
much  younger  companion  nurse.  When  the  order 
against  having  fires  in  rooms  went  into  effect  she 
summoned  the  doctor  immediately  and  demanded 
a  certificate  of  illness  in  a  querulous  and  indignant 
voice.  The  doctor  obediently  started  in  on  the 
certificate,  but  when  became  to  naming  the  illness 
which  made  a  fire  necessary  he  hesitated. 

"What,"  he  asked,  "shall  I  give  as  your  par- 
ticular form  of  ill  health?" 

The  old  lady  didn't  care. 

"Write  down  anything  you  want  to,"  she  said. 
"I  want  that  fire  and  I  don't  care  how  I  get  it.  I'm 
cold,  I  tell  you!" 

So  the  doctor  wrote  down  old  age  as  the  reason. 
When  the  old  lady  saw  it  she  was  highly  incensed. 

"Old  age!"  she  screamed.  "Old  age!  What's 
that  got  to  do  with  it?"  She  pointed  her  lean  and 
quivering  forefinger  at  her  youthful  companion. 
"Do  you  see  her?"  she  asked.  The  doctor  ad- 
mitted that  he  did.  "Well,"  said  the  old  lady,  "she 
isn't  a  third  as  old  as  I  am.  She  isn't  suffering  from 
old  age,  and  she's  cold,  too.  You  can  put  that  down 
on  your  old  prescription!" 

337 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

As  a  result  of  the  constant  chill  which  permeated 
every  building,  life  for  90  per  cent  of  the  EngHsh 
during  the  past  winter  consisted  of  just  one  cold 
after  another.  One's  first  impression  on  entering 
any  public  place  was  a  constant  fusillade  of  sneezes, 
wheezes,  and  coughs  which  at  times  attained  the 
proportion  of  drum  fire. 

There  was  only  one  topic  of  conversation  which 
could  compete  with  the  incessant  talk  about  chilH- 
ness,  and  that  was  the  subject  of  housing.  England 
is  as  full  of  people  as  a  parlor  Bolshevist  is  full  of  half- 
baked  theories.  She  is  shy  of  apartments,  hotels, 
and  houses,  and  this  is  true  of  every  part  of  Great 
Britain,  and  Ireland  as  well.  A  rumor  in  southern 
England  to  the  effect  that  a  Red  Cross  hut  was  to  be 
sold  by  the  Americans  brought  half  a  dozen  women 
pedaling  over  muddy  roads  on  bicycles  on  the  chance 
of  getting  a  place  to  live.  There  have  been  no 
repairs  during  the  years  of  the  war,  and  no  building 
to  speak  of.  England  lacks  500,000  houses,  which  is 
a  fine,  commodious  number  of  houses  to  lack  in  these 
piping  times  of  overwhelming  building  costs.  Dur- 
ing the  next  four  years  she  will  have  to  build  154,000 
houses  every  year  in  order  to  make  up  the  shortage 
and  take  care  of  all  the  people  who  need  homes. 

The  arduous  and  nerve-racking  labor  which  one 
must  endure  in  order  to  get  a  temporary  or  a  per- 
manent habitation  in  England  at  the  present  day  is 
worthy  to  rank  with  any  of  the  labors  of  the  late 
John  D.  Hercules,  the  original  solver  of  labor 
troubles. 

I  would  greatly  admire  to  see  Mr.  Hercules  going 
from  one  London  hotel  to  another  attempting  to 

338 


MERRIE   ENGLAND 

find  a  place  to  rest  his  weary  head  without  resorting 
to  the  obvious  expedient  of  clubbing  some  one  to 
death  and  seizing  his  room  before  somebody  else  had 
a  chance  to  get  it.  I  rather  think  that  Mr.  Hercules 
would  wind  up  by  sleeping  on  a  billiard  table  or  on 
the  floor  of  a  smoking  room,  as  so  many  others  have 
done. 

Every  time  a  boat  train  comes  up  to  London  a  little 
group  of  earnest  American  business  men  get  together 
and  exchange  the  agonizing  tales  of  their  adventures 
in  locating  a  place  to  sleep.  Not  long  ago  a  boat 
train  disgorged  its  travelers  in  Euston  Station, 
London,  and  an  optimistic  crowd  of  Americans 
scattered  in  every  direction  in  search  of  rooms,  after 
checking  their  heavy  luggage  at  a  hotel  near  the 
station.  Later  on  that  night  one  of  them  wandered 
wearily  back  to  the  hotel  where  he  had  left  his  lug- 
gage, told  the  porter  a  harrowing  story  of  going  into 
thirty-two  hotels  and  being  refused  accommodations 
in  each  one,  and  slipped  him  a  one-pound  note  for 
a  bed  on  the  billiard  table.  He  retired  to  his  couch 
and  was  just  composing  himself  for  slumber  when  the 
billiard-room  door  opened  and  the  porter  ushered 
in  another  of  the  Americans  who  had  started  to 
hunt  for  rooms  at  the  same  time.  The  two  were 
discussing  the  situation  in  venomous  tones  when  the 
door  opened  again  and  a  third  visiting  American  was 
admitted.  Before  midnight  eleven  Americans  who 
had  failed  to  obtain  accommodations  were  sitting  in 
the  billiard  room.  The  entire  night  was  spent  in 
conversation  on  English  hotels  and  kindred  gloomy 
subjects. 

The  average  English  hotel  room  was  probably 
339 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

designed  primarily  as  a  place  in  which  one  or  more 
persons  could  sleep;  but  a  casual  observation  might 
easily  lead  a  person  to  believe  that  the  hotel  archi- 
tects had  been  working  in  collusion  with  the  Busi- 
ness Men's  Association,  and  that  the  rooms  had  con- 
sequently been  designed  to  be  as  uncomfortable  as 
possible,  so  that  the  occupants  would  keep  out  of 
them  and,  consequently,  spend  money.  English 
hotel  architects  seem  to  have  a  positive  genius  for 
avoiding  things  that  might  tend  to  make  hotel 
guests  comfortable.  The  electric  light,  for  example, 
is  usually  as  far  as  possible  from  the  bed.  Conse- 
quently, one  cannot  read  in  bed;  and  when  one  has 
snapped  off  the  light  in  the  evening  one  has  a  long 
walk  past  the  washstand,  which  is  usually  made  of 
black  walnut  and  placed  in  such  a  position  that 
anybody  walking  from  the  electric-light  switch  to 
the  bed  must  run  foul  of  one  of  its  corners.  Occa- 
sionally one  finds  a  hotel  which  boasts  of  two  lights — 
one  over  the  bed  and  one  over  the  bureau.  In  such 
cases  there  is  usually  a  masterful  and  cunning  ar- 
rangement of  switches  which  prevents  the  one  over 
the  bed  being  lighted  unless  the  one  over  the  bureau 
is  not  lighted,  and  vice  versa.  None  the  less,  the 
poorest  hotel  room  looks  like  the  royal  suite  to  a  man 
who  has  spent  the  night  in  an  attempt  to  locate  the 
soft  spots  in  a  billiard-table  top  with  an  angular  and 
protuberant  hip  bone. 

So  crowded  are  the  London  hotels  that  newly  ar- 
rived foreigners,  after  completely  exhausting  them- 
selves by  dashing  from  hostelry  to  hostelry,  only  to 
be  informed  superciliously  at  each  caravansary  that 
there  will  be  no  vacancies  for  three  months,  fre- 

340 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

quently  pile  their  luggage  into  a  train  and  go  off  to 
some  place  like  Brighton,  where  there  are  a  number 
of  large  summer  hotels.  There  they  remain,  taking 
two  hours  to  go  up  to  London  each  morning  and 
two  hours  to  go  back  at  night,  until  somebody  who 
knows  somebod}^  who  has  a  friend  that  is  vacating  a 
hotel  room  whispers  a  hint  in  their  ears  and  gives 
them  a  chance  to  move  up  to  the  big  city. 

The  reason  for  all  the  crowding  of  hotels  and  the 
shortage  in  houses  is  due,  of  course,  to  the  cessation 
of  normal  building  during  the  war,  to  the  taking 
over  of  many  of  the  largest  hotels  by  various  de- 
partments of  the  government  for  war  activities,  to 
the  large  number  of  people  who  came  into  the  cities 
to  do  war  work,  to  the  young  people  who  have 
grown  up  and  wish  to  start  housekeeping  for  them- 
selves, and  to  the  elevated  standard  of  living  which 
has  come  about  in  many  countries  because  of  the 
war,  and  which,  among  other  things,  makes  people 
loath  to  crowd  themselves  into  as  small  a  space  as 
formerly  answered  their  purposes.  Many  young 
people,  lacking  houses,  have  started  their  married 
lives  in  hotels.  Enormous  numbers,  moreover, 
seem  to  be  traveling.  Late  in  November  every 
berth  on  trains  running  to  the  winter  resorts  of 
southern  France  was  booked  through  March.  As 
one  English  business  man  remarked,  "The  world's 
left  home." 

At  this  point  I  wish  to  rise  for  the  purpose  of 
remarking  in  strident  tones  that  the  person  who 
leaves  home  for  the  purpose  of  traveling  in  Europe 
at  this  particular  period  of  the  world's  development 
or  underdevelopment  when   he  doesn't  have  to  is 

341 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

upward  of  fifty-seven  different  varieties  of  idiot. 
At  a  later  period  I  propose  to  go  into  this  matter  at 
greater  length,  but  I  feel  that  I  must  mention  the 
horrors  of  foreign  travel  in  passing,  even  though  I 
cannot  at  the  moment  do  more  than  refer  to  them 
in  the  sketchiest  manner.  I  know  that  nobody  will 
heed  my  words,  but  I  have  the  satisfaction  of  knowing 
that  in  the  not  distant  future  there  will  be  many  a 
person  who,  when  sitting  up  all  night  in  a  European 
train  with  eight  or  ten  strangers  standing  heavily 
on  his  feet  and  four  or  five  others  waiting  for  him 
to  go  to  sleep  so  that  they  can  steal  his  baggage, 
will  hark  back  to  these  words  of  mine  and  realize 
with  a  dull  throb  of  despair  that  the  words  were 
sincere  and  conservative. 

If  the  hotel  situation  in  England  is  bad  now,  what 
will  it  be  when  the  gay  and  care-free  American 
tourists  begin  to  pour  in  in  ever-increasing  numbers  ? 
I  could  tell  you  what  it  will  be  if  I  wanted  to,  but  I 
do  not  care  to  be  accused  of  contaminating  the  minds 
of  the  younger  generation  with  low  language. 

England  is  making  a  valiant  effort  to  solve  the 
housing  problem.  The  Ministry  of  Health  has  a 
well -organized  Housing  Department  which  is  dig- 
ging into  the  subject  as  busily  as  it  can,  while  the 
British  public  stands  on  the  side  lines  and  curses 
the  Housing  Department  as  ferociously  as  possible. 
Some  of  the  cursers  shriek  and  tear  their  hair  because 
they  claim  that  the  Housing  Department  intends 
to  let  the  newly  built  houses  at  less  than  their  so- 
called  economic  rent,  and  that  the  taxpayer  will  thus 
be  robbed.  Other  cursers  gnash  their  teeth  because 
they  hold  that  the  Housing  Department  intends  to 

342 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

let  the  houses  at  their  economic  rent,  and  that  by 
so  doing  the  poor,  who  cannot  afford  to  pay,  will 
be  robbed.  Again  some  howl  and  roar  because  they 
claim  that  the  Housing  Department  is  doing  nothing 
to  get  bricks  and  building  material ;  others  wail  and 
bellow  because  they  claim  that  the  Housing  Depart- 
ment has  cornered  bricks  and  building  material 
and  thus  sent  prices  soaring.  That  is  one  very  sure 
sign  that  the  English  people  are  not  consumed  by 
the  post-war  lethargy  that  has  laid  some  nations  by 
the  heels.  The  English  people  are  always  kicking. 
They  always  have  something  to  beat  their  breasts 
about.  Nobody  can  ever  put  much  of  anything 
over  on  the  English  people,  for,  no  matter  what  it  is, 
at  least  half  of  the  people  will  be  against  it  on  general 
principles,  and  they  will  rave  so  frantically  against 
it  that  the  rest  of  the  country  will  take  a  good  look 
at  it  to  see  what  it's  all  about. 

None  the  less,  the  Housing  Department  of  the 
Ministry  of  Health  has  worked  out  some  good 
schemes  to  protect  the  people  in  the  house  shortage. 
It  has  selected  sites  for  the  needed  half  million 
houses ;  it  has  put  a  ban  on  the  building  of  structures 
that  are  not  essential  for  the  housing  needs  of  the 
people;  it  has  granted  a  certain  amount  of  money  to 
each  individual  who  will  build  a  house;  it  has 
succeeded  in  having  plans  for  60,000  houses  sub- 
mitted, and  the  plans  have  been  approved ;  it  has 
all  the  bricks,  slates,  drain  pipes,  doors,  windows, 
sinks,  and  baths  for  them.  Contractors  have  made 
bids  on  the  houses,  which  range  from  tiny  cottages 
with  a  living  room,  a  kitchen,  and  a  bedroom,  to 
comparatively  imposing  mansions   of  a   parlor,   a 

343 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

living  room,  a  kitchen,  and  four  bedrooms,  and, 
though  bids  have  not  been  made  on  all  of  them,  the 
average  cost  of  those  on  which  bids  were  made  was 
approximately  £700,  or  the  equivalent — to  an 
American — of  $2,800. 

The  question  of  what  a  pound  is  worth  in  dollars 
is  a  rather  difficult  matter  to  deal  with  because  of  the 
constant  fluctuation  in  the  rate  of  exchange,  and 
also  because  it  is  unfair  to  translate  it  into  dollars 
when  applying  it  to  transactions  made  between 
Englishmen.  A  pound  is  always  worth  a  pound  to 
an  Englishman.  He  is  paid  in  pounds,  and  their 
value  is  always  the  same  to  him  except  when  he  is 
buying  something  from  an  American,  in  which  case 
they  aren't  worth  so  much,  or  when  he  is  buying 
something  from  Germany  or  France,  in  which  case 
they  are  worth  more  than  they  ever  were. 

When  I  was  in  England  the  pound  was  worth  a 
trifle  under  four  dollars  to  an  American,  instead  of 
being  worth  almost  five  dollars  as  in  the  old  days. 
To  say  that  the  English  were  fretful  over  this  state 
of  affairs  is  to  be  ultraconservative.  It  would  be 
more  accurate  to  say  that  the  clatter  which  resulted 
from  their  gnashing  of  teeth  could  be  heard  for 
miles.  The  subject  of  exchange  is  dragged  into 
every  conversation  and  bandied  about  by  all  the 
most  energetic  bandiers  in  the  vicinity;  in  fact,  I 
should  go  so  far  as  to  say  that,  for  every  cent  which 
each  English  pound  has  depreciated  in  value,  there 
has  been  at  least  two  and  a  quarter  hours  of  bandying 
by  the  English  people. 

I  assume  that  the  reasoi\s  for  the  depreciation  in 
the  currency  of  foreign  nations  is  as  clear  as  the 

344 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

finest  and  most  expensive  crystal  to  the  average 
person.  Noted  financiers  have  explained  it  to  me 
in  nicely  chosen  and  well-modulated  language,  and 
I  have  written  down  their  remarks  in  my  note- 
book with  considerable  enthusiasm,  but  after  I  have 
retired  to  the  privacy  of  my  chamber  and  studied 
my  notes  the  explanations  seem  about  as  clear  as 
a  chocolate-souffle  pudding.  That  is  to  say,  the 
language  in  which  the  explanations  are  phrased  is 
sufficiently  clear,  but  they  do  not  explain  to  my 
travel-muddled  brain  why  the  English  pound  should 
one  day  be  worth  $4.16  and  the  next  day  $3.92  and 
the  next  day  $4.12. 

The  Morgan  interests  and  the  large  banking 
houses  of  the  world  have  nothing  to  fear  from  me  as 
a  financier.  I  have  no  intention  of  competing  with 
them,  and  I  am  not  trying  to  make  anybody  think 
that  I  know  anything  about  finance.  None  the  less, 
after  I  study  the  explanations  of  prominent  bankers 
as  to  why  the  rate  of  exchange  is  lurching  hither 
and  yon  like  a  Swampscott  dory  in  a  Pacific  typhoon, 
I  have  a  vague  feeling  that  when  the  financiers  ex- 
plain they  forget  to  include  one  of  the  important 
reasons  for  the  peculiarly  drunken  movements  of 
foreign  money.  I  think  that  they  forget  to  say 
that  the  important  financial  interests  in  every  coun- 
try in  the  world  are  speculating  merrily  in  foreign 
money,  buying  it  when  it's  low  and  selling  it  to  their 
own  people  when  it's  high.  I  am  probably  wrong, 
because  when  I  spoke  about  the  matter  to  several 
bankers  they  merely  regarded  me  pityingly  and  gave 
me  another  ultralucid  explanation  which  explained 
nothing  at  all. 

345 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Americans  who  intend  to  go  abroad  should  make 
up  their  minds,  before  starting,  to  watch  the  rate 
of  exchange  with  extreme  care  and  to  be  careful 
where  they  have  their  money  changed.  There 
is  one  tourist  agency — not  an  American  agency, 
I  am  glad  to  say — which  helps  itself  to  several 
cents  out  of  every  American  dollar  which  it 
changes.  When  banks  and  American  agencies  are 
selling  an  English  pound  for  four  dollars  flat,  for 
example,  this  particular  agency  will  frequently 
charge  from  twelve  to  twenty-five  cents  more 
for  it. 

Every  American  business  man  in  England  had 
practically  the  same  viewpoint  on  the  depreciation 
of  the  English  pound,  and  this  is  about  the  way  he 
looked  at  it: 

America  is  selling  more  goods  to  England  than 
England  is  selling  to  America.  In  one  month  re- 
cently the  amount  of  goods  which  America  sold  to 
England  was  valued  at  £66,000,000  more  than  the 
goods  which  England  sold  to  us.  Therefore  England 
needs  to  purchase  a  great  deal  of  American  money 
with  which  to  pay  for  American  goods;  whereas 
America  doesn't  need  to  purchase  nearly  so  much 
English  money  to  pay  for  the  English  goods.  If 
America  and  England  both  needed  an  equal  amount 
of  each  other's  money  the  value  of  both  moneys 
would  be  normal.  But  since  there  is  more  demand 
for  one  than  for  the  other,  the  one  for  which  there  is 
more  demand  immediately  goes  up  in  price.  It  is 
our  venerable  friend,  the  law  of  supply  and  demand. 
If  there  is  a  great  demand  for  china  pug  dogs  and 
there  are  only  seven  of  them  in  the  world,  they  are 

346 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

going  to  be  worth  about  a  million  dollars  apiece. 
Really,  it's  too  simple! 

Very  well,  then ;  as  English  pounds  slide  down  in 
value  the  Englishman  has  to  hand  out  more  and 
more  of  them  to  buy  American  dollars  with  which  to 
buy  American  goods.  This  gives  the  Englishman  a 
slow  shooting  pain ;  for,  like  the  rest  of  us,  he  hates 
to  pay  out  more  than  he  used  to  have  to  pay  out 
in  the  old  days.  Eventually  he  will  balk  and  will 
emphatically  refuse  to  buy  from  America  anything 
that  he  doesn't  absolutely  have  to  buy  there. 
Whenever  possible  he  will  buy  from  other  countries 
where  the  English  pound  has  greater  purchasing 
power,  and  one  can  scarcely  take  him  to  task  for  so 
doing. 

This  applies  to  other  countries  as  well.  All  of 
them  are  sending  less  goods  to  us  than  we  are  sending 
to  them.  Consequently  they  need  American  money 
more  than  we  need  their  money,  and  the  old  reliable 
law  of  supply  and  demand  causes  the  value  of  their 
money  to  remain  low.  They,  too,  are  refusing  to 
buy  more  from  America  than  they  absolutely  need. 
In  time  England  and  the  other  countries  will  be 
dealing  with  us  so  little  that  our  business  men  will 
have  no  more  European  trade  to  speak  of,  and  no 
European  markets  for  their  goods. 

The  answer  to  all  this  is  for  American  business 
men  to  buy  all  sorts  of  foreign  goods.  Yet  when  I 
was  in  London  Americans  couldn't  buy  much  of 
anything  from  the  English,  in  spite  of  the  extreme 
cheapness  of  everything  from  an  American  view- 
point, because  English  factories  weren't  turning  out 
so  much  material  as  they  ought,  due  to  a  coal  short- 

23  347 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

age,  and  the  output  of  the  factories  was  bought  up 
for  months  ahead. 

The  general  manager  of  a  London  firm  which 
employs  twenty-one  thousand  persons  spent  the 
better  part  of  an  hour  emitting  heartrending  moans 
to  me  because  of  the  underproduction  of  English 
factories.  Skilled  labor,  he  declared,  was  far  lazier 
than  it  used  to  be  in  the  old  days.  The  workers, 
according  to  him,  were  working  30  per  cent  less  hours 
and  producing  20  per  cent  less  goods  than  in  pre- 
war days.  He  laid  part  of  the  trouble  to  the  coal 
shortage  and  the  lack  of  raw  material;  but  he  also 
laid  the  chief  blame  with  a  vicious  thump  at  the  door 
of  general  restlessness  and  unwillingness  to  settle 
down. 

"Our  firm  finds  it  almost  impossible,"  he  said, 
"to  get  glass,  china,  furniture,  and  carpets.  We 
need  large  quantities  of  these  things;  but  they 
can't  be  had  in  the  needed  amounts  at  any  price. 
When  we  want  china  from  the  people  that  made  our 
china  before  the  war,  we  don't  dare  to  tell  them  the 
total  amount  that  we  need,  for  they  would  be 
frightened  off  and  wouldn't  touch  any  of  our  order. 
We  disclose  only  about  a  quarter  of  our  actual  needs ; 
and  we  feel  highly  elated  if  they  consent  to  supply 
us  with  any  amount  at  any  price." 

All  Americans  in  England  agree  that  there  is  only 
one  thing  that  will  bring  the  value  of  foreign  money 
back  where  it  belongs  and  keep  it  there,  and  that  is 
a  large  production  of  goods  in  foreign  countries,  and 
the  purchase  of  them  by  America  until  the  values 
of  imports  and  exports  are  equal  again.  The 
granting  of  credits  is  necessary,  so  that  the  war- 

348 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

crippled  industries  of  different  countries  can  get 
back  to  a  normal  production;  but  until  the  trade 
balance  between  countries  is  restored  there  can  be 
no  permanent  relief  from  the  present  messiness  of 
the  rates  of  exchange.  Everything  comes  down  to 
the  question  of  production.  Unless  the  manufac- 
turers and  workmen  of  the  different  countries  produce 
at  top  speed,  and  keep  on  producing,  the  world  will 
continue  to  throw  the  same  fit  that  it  has  been 
throwing  for  so  many  months. 

When  an  American  strikes  England  he  is  greatly 
intrigued  by  the  relatively  low  rates  which  obtain. 
The  best  tailors  in  the  most  expensive  sections  of 
London  are  charging  £12  for  a  suit  of  clothes;  and 
£12  means  $48  to  an  American.  The  same  cloth 
made  into  a  suit  by  a  good  American  tailor  would 
have  cost  $110  to  $150.  Good  suits  of  excellent 
materials  can  be  had  from  less  fashionable  tailors 
at  £8  and  £9.  All  things  are  correspondingly  low 
from  an  American  viewpoint.  From  the  English 
viewpoint,  however,  most  things  are  as  high  as 
things  in  America  seem  to  Americans,  and  the  same 
ferocious  howls  of  protest  are  heard  in  England  that 
are  heard  in  America. 

Generally  speaking,  the  great  mass  of  people  in 
England  are  spending  their  money  more  freely  than 
the  people  in  America  are  spending,  though  there  are 
many  EngHshmen  who  deny  this  indignantly.  I 
went  to  a  number  of  large  employers  of  labor,  and 
for  each  one  who  said  that  the  people  were  not 
kicking  their  money  away  there  were  three  who 
said  that  they  were.  The  poor  man  to-day  is 
paying  for  his  food  and  clothes  what  the  wealthy 

349 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

man  used  to  pay  before  the  war.  The  prices  of  the 
things  which  he  buys  are  double  and  frequently 
treble  what  he  used  to  pay.  The  prices  of  the 
things  which  the  rich  man  needs,  on  the  other  hand, 
have  risen  about  80  per  cent.  Before  the  war  the 
poor  man  paid  £3  for  a  suit;  now  he  pays  £8.  The 
rich  man  used  to  pay  £8,  and  now  pays  £12.  Cheap 
articles  are  the  ones  that  have  gone  up  the  most 
in  England.  Expensive  fish,  like  turbot  and  salmon, 
have  not  quite  doubled  in  price.  But  cheap  fish, 
like  cod,  plaice,  eels,  and  whiting,  have  soared. 
Plaice  used  to  be  4  shillings  for  14  pounds.  Last 
winter  it  was  14  shillings  for  14  pounds. 

The  rich  are  spending  money  heavily  because  if 
they  didn't  spend  it  they  would  have  to  pay  out 
half  of  it  in  excess-orofits  taxes,  and  because  they 
fear  a  tax  on  capital.  The  manager  of  a  feverishly 
fashionable  jewelry  establishment  on  Bond  Street 
told  me  that  the  month  of  November,  191 9,  was  the 
biggest  month  for  sales  that  his  firm  had  ever  had 
in  its  history.  The  wealthy  English  people  were 
coming  to  him  and  investing  their  money  in  diamonds 
because  they  figured  that  their  value  increased  at 
least  6  per  cent  a  year,  and  because  if  the  government 
should  happen  to  attach  a  large  melancholy  tax  on 
capital  their  diamonds  would  be  free  of  the  foul 
proceeding. 

The  people  in  moderate  circumstances  are  spend- 
ing their  money  freely  because  they  have  received 
high  wages  and  saved  money  during  the  war,  because 
the  war  has  left  them  in  a  state  of  restlessness  and 
excitement,  and  because  they  have  become  accus- 
tomed to  a  better  standard  of  living  than  they  knew 

350 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

during  pre-war  days.  The  mass  of  people  are  living 
in  less  crowded  quarters,  eating  better  food  and 
wearing  better  clothes  than  ever  before.  Since 
people  wisely  insist  on  maintaining  a  high  standard 
of  living,  once  they  have  attained  it  the  English 
people  will  probably  continue  to  spend  more  freely 
than  they  ever  did  before.  Working  girls  who  never 
dreamed  of  wearing  anything  but  cotton  stockings 
in  the  old  days  are  now  wearing  silk.  The  head  of 
a  business  which  employs  a  large  number  of  living- 
in  people — people  who  are  provided  with  their  iood 
and  sleeping  quarters — casually  mentioned  a  girl 
employee  who  received  £3  a  week  wages  in  addition 
to  her  food  and  lodging,  and  who  had  reported  to 
him  the  loss  of  a  coat  which  cost  £9. 

The  average  city  wage  of  a  workman  is  about  £5  a 
week,  but  in  some  sections  of  England  the  earnings 
are  much  larger.  In  the  Welsh  coal  mines,  for  exam- 
ple, there  are  men  who  can  earn  from  £1 ,000  to  £1 ,200 
a  year  if  they  wish  to  hustle — which  they  don't  often 
care  to  do  nowadays.  At  that  rate  the  miners  would 
earn  more  money  than  the  officials  and  managers. 
The  average  earnings  at  one  Welsh  colliery  at  a 
place  with  a  peculiarly  Welsh  combination  of  letters 
in  its  name — Ebbw  Vale — amounts  to  £800  a  year; 
and  £800  a  year  means  nearly  $4,000  a  year  to  an 
Englishman.  Singularly  enough,  that  particular 
colliery  turns  out  the  cheapest  coal  in  the  district, 
in  spite  of  the  high  wages  which  it  pays. 

The  reports  of  large  earnings  come  from  all  parts 
of  England.  One  small  town  in  Wales  boasts  of 
fifteen  millionaires.  The  city  of  Northampton  puts 
in  a  modest  scream  to  the  effect  that  it  is  the  boot 

351 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

capital  of  the  world  and  that  its  boot  manufacturers 
have  rolled  up  fortunes  overnight;  in  fact,  some  of 
them  seem  to  have  devoted  only  a  part  of  the  night 
to  rolling  up  their  fortunes.  The  rest  of  the  night 
has  been  devoted  to  blowing  in  the  roll.  The  city  of 
Norwich  also  makes  boots,  but  it  hasn't  made  quite 
so  many  as  Northampton,  so  that  its  manufacturers 
aren't  quite  so  rich.  Therefore  they  are  jealous; 
and  in  Norwich  they  sneer  cruelly  and  remark 
venomously,  "Touch  a  Northamptonshire  boot 
manufacturer  and  he  will  jingle  because  he  has  so 
much  money."  In  Northampton  they  declare  that 
two  thirds  of  the  Allied  armies  marched  in  North- 
amptonshire boots.  Without  their  boots,  they  say, 
"America  could  not  have  won  the  war."  And  with 
that  remark  they  burst  into  howls  of  merriment, 
significant  of  their  opinion  of  the  amount  that 
America  had  to  do  with  winning  the  war. 

Lancashire,  Yorkshire,  the  Midlands — all  indus- 
trial Britain  is  overlaid  with  money.  Fine  cigars 
and  expensive  champagnes  are  being  sold  with 
tremendous  fluency  in  those  regions.  All  over 
England  people  are  playing  the  stock  market  to  an 
extent  never  before  known.  They  aren't  investing; 
they're  gambling.  Some  wealthy  manufacturers 
were  telling  me  about  oil  stocks  which  they  con- 
sidered good.  I  asked  them  what  they  were  cap- 
italized at,  what  their  earnings  were,  how  much  they 
yielded  on  their  purchase  price.  Not  one  of  them 
knew  or  cared.     They  were  merely  gambling  in  them. 

No  matter  how  prosperous  an  English  business 
man  may  be„  however,  he  is  always  able  to  obtain 
great  mental  relief  and  relaxation  from  engaging  an 

352 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

American  in  conversation  and  telling  him  what  he 
conceives  to  be  a  few  plain  facts.  I  may  say  that 
the  most  popular  indoor  sport  in  England  during  the 
winter  months  is  baiting  an  American,  Government 
officials  don't  do  it,  of  course,  or  people  of  tact. 
But  the  average  Englishman  that  an  American  meets 
can't  be  happy  until  he  rids  himself  of  several  re- 
marks about  America  and  Americans,  delivered  hot 
off  the  waffle  iron,  so  to  speak.  Every  American  in 
England  gets  the  same  sort  of  talk  wherever  he  turns. 
In  England  they  are  still  dwelling  on  the  fact  that 
America  entered  the  war  about  two  years  too  late. 
They  love  to  harp  on  that.  I  have  a  persistent 
feeling  that  years  and  years  from  now,  when  the 
members  of  that  large  body  which  gets  under  the 
wire  in  the  so-called  younger-generation  class  goes 
doddering  over  to  England  with  long,  silky,  white 
beards  waving  gently  in  the  breeze,  the  English 
will  still  be  referring  caustically  to  our  slowness  in 
entering  the  war. 

The  English  are  great  people  with  whom  to  for- 
gather. They  speak  our  language  and  they  fight 
well  and  cleanly.  They  are  wonderful  people  to  do 
business  with,  because  their  word  is  as  good  as  their 
bond  and  they  are  steadfast  in  their  associations. 
But  they  are  given  to  overmuch  harping,  I  think. 
They  are  the  world's  greatest  harpers.  It  is  my 
belief  that  if  an  Englishman  and  a  representative 
from  any  other  nation  entered  a  harping  contest  the 
Englishman  would  finish  at  least  nine  and  a  half 
harps  ahead  of  his  opponent.  In  addition  to  harp- 
ing on  our  dilatory  entry  into  the  recent  conflict, 
they   are  greatly   given  to  harping  on  the  large 

353 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

amount  of  money  which  America  made  during  the 
war.  The  common  expression  of  opinion  from  an 
Enghshman  to  an  American  is  that  America  during 
the  war  made  all  the  money  in  the  worid.  To  hear 
an  Englishman  talk  you  might  imagine  that  greedy 
America  had  left  about  eleven  cents  to  be  divided 
among  the  nations  of  the  world,  and  that  she  had 
appropriated  everything  else  for  herself.  This  mat- 
ter is  never  allowed  to  rest.  I  would  even  go  so 
far  as  to  say  that  it  is  never  allowed  to  sit  down. 
It  has  been  sentenced  to  hard  labor  for  life  by  the 
English,  and  whenever  an  American  goes  to  England 
it  is  brought  out  and  made  to  perform  all  sorts  of 
arduous  stunts. 

Even  the  people  from  the  Belfast  linen  factories 
and  the  Northamptonshire  boot  factories  and  the 
industrial  Midlands,  who  have  emerged  from  the 
war  with  their  wallets  bursting  at  every  seam — even 
they  contribute  to  the  harpers'  chorus.  I  have  seen 
them  stop  right  in  the  middle  of  an  abstruse  argu- 
ment with  a  waiter  regarding  the  respective  merits 
of  1894  and  1907  champagne  and  plunge  headlong 
into  a  full-toned  harp  relative  to  America's  cornering 
of  the  world's  money.  There  is  nothing  violent 
about  their  harping,  but  it  is  clearly  intended  to 
be  a  rebuke  and  a  marked  evidence  of  disapproval. 
They  seem  to  regard  every  American  as  being  per- 
sonally responsible  for  these  two  serious  defects  in 
conduct. 

They  also  appear  to  labor  under  the  impression 
that  every  American  wool  buyer,  newspaper  man, 
machinery  salesman,  shoe  manufacturer,  and  banker 
who  comes  to  England  was  one  of  President  Wilson's 

354 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

personal  advisers  during  the  ante-bellum,  the  bellum, 
and  the  post-bellum  days.  During  the  past  year 
they  have  acquired  the  piquant  and  novel  idea  that 
President  Wilson  alone  was  responsible  for  the 
cessation  of  hostilities  before  the  Germans  were 
really  whipped,  and  that  if  it  hadn't  been  for  Presi- 
dent Wilson  the  fighting  would  have  continued  for 
some  weeks,  when  the  Germans  would  have  been 
beaten  to  a  light,  creamy  froth.  They  are  trying 
this  on  their  harpers,  and  it  seems  to  sound  pretty 
well  to  them.  They  are  passing  it  on  to  the  Ameri- 
cans with  great  frequency,  and  the  earnestness  with 
which  they  advance  it  implies  clearly  that  every 
American  ought  to  feel  abashed  for  having  advised 
President  Wilson  to  do  such  a  thing,  and  that  he 
ought  to  go  right  back  to  America  and  do  something 
about  it. 

And  then  they  harp  on  the  America-won-the-war 
stuff.  They  haul  it  into  the  conversation  and  slam 
it  up  against  the  wall  and  mop  up  the  floor  with  it. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  that  if  I  lived  to  be  190 
years  old  and  went  over  to  England  and  dropped 
into  a  restaurant  for  a  dash  of  soft  fodder  for  my 
ancient  gums,  the  man  beside  me  would  say  some- 
thing derogatory  about  the  weather  and  then  leer 
at  me  and  make  a  sly  remark  about  America  winning 
the  war.  He  would  get  that  off  about  the  time  I 
was  struggling  with  my  suet  pudding,  and  by  the 
time  I  had  finished  he  would  have  harped  on  all 
the  other  subjects  to  which  I  have  referred  above, 
and  I  would  be  weeping  senilely  into  my  dish  of 
Cheddar  cheese.  Americans  usually  don't  mind 
such  remarks  when  they  are  made  only  eight  or  ten 

355 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

times,  but  when  they  are  made  with  unfailing 
regularity  by  every  chance  acquaintance  they  begin 
to  affect  the  nervous  system  in  a  most  pronounced 
manner. 

Much  of  this  probably  is  due  to  the  Englishman's 
passion  for  doing  things  in  the  ordinary-  way.  Any- 
thing which  isn't  done  in  the  ordinary  way  is  no 
end  loathsome  to  an  Englishman,  as  one  might  say. 
For  example,  the  Englishman  is  greatly  given  to 
saying  that  something  is  extraordinary  when  it  isn't 
at  all  extraordinary.  But  to  say,  "Extraordinary!" 
as  a  sign  of  some  surprise  is  the  ordinary  way,  so  the 
Englishman  does  it.  An  American  friend  of  mine 
in  England  was  addicted  to  the  habit  of  wearing  a 
collar  whose  size  was  the  same  as  the  size  of  his 
shirt.  He  had  some  shirts  made  by  an  English 
shirtmaker,  and  then  tried  to  persuade  him  to  make 
some  collars  whose  size  would  be  the  same  as  the 
size  of  the  shirts'  neckbands.  But  the  shirtmaker 
wouldn't.  Collars  were  always  made  larger  than 
the  shirt.  It  wasn't  the  ordinary  way  to  make  them 
both  the  same  size.  If  made  that  way  the  collar 
would  be  too  tight.  Extrawdnry!  He'd  never 
heard  of  such  a  thing!  It  simply  wasn't  done!  It 
wasn't  the  ordinary  way!  The  American  couldn't 
carry  his  point.  He  had  to  give  it  up.  To  speak 
slightingly  to  Americans  about  making  all  the 
money  in  the  world  and  winning  the  war  and  such 
things  has  come  to  be  the  ordinary  way  to  talk  to 
Americans.  That,  I  believe,  is  the  reason  for  a  lot  of 
it.  Another  reason  is  the  natural  annoyance  which 
a  staid  conservative  feels  when  he  looks  at  a  very 
young,  very  lusty,  very  successful  young  person, 

356 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

These  things  mean  nothing,  however.  The  Eng- 
lishman is  one  of  the  best  sportsmen  in  the  world, 
and  he  is  playing  the  trying  reconstruction  game  for 
all  he's  worth.  Some  countries  are  cheating  and 
dodging  and  lying  and  evading  at  every  point  of 
the  game,  but  England  isn't.  When  there's  a  coal 
shortage  everybody  in  England  shivers  and  cuts 
down  on  his  lights;  when  there's  a  food  shortage 
everybody  cuts  down  on  his  food;  when  a  man 
profiteers  he  is  fined  with  celerity,  enthusiasm,  and 
vigor. 

A  profiteer  doesn't  have  to  be  a  very  extensive 
profiteer  to  get  it  in  the  neck.  At  Dudley,  in 
Worcestershire,  a  liquor  dealer  overcharged  one 
penny  on  a  glass  of  rum.  The  judge  promptly 
soaked  him  £5.  At  Willesden  a  milkman  was 
found  watering  his  milk.  It  cost  him  £5  also. 
A  Willesden  provision  dealer  overcharged  a  customer 
sixpence  for  a  rabbit,  and  his  adventure  in  profiteer- 
ing depleted  his  savings  by  the  little  matter  of 
£10  and  costs.  One  of  the  large  London  department 
stores  sold  a  hook  and  chain  for  fastening  a  fur 
collar  for  one  shilling  elevenpence  ha'penny.  The 
customer,  on  thinking  it  over,  decided  that  she  had 
been  stung,  so  she  went  before  the  Westminster 
Profiteering  Tribunal  and  made  a  loud,  penetrating 
roar,  declaring  that  she  could  have  got  said  hook 
and  chain  for  one  shilling  and  three  quarters  of  a 
penny  if  she  had  hunted  a  bit  farther.  The  learned 
tribunal  heard  evidence  as  to  the  cost  of  the  metals 
and  various  other  matters,  and  after  due  deliberation 
decided  that  it  sounded  suspiciously  like  a  case  of 
profiteering.    A  prosecution  was  therefore  directed, 

357 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

and  the  department  store  appeared  to  be  out  of 
luck. 

Food  in  England  is  plentiful  and  reasonable  in 
price,  even  for  the  English,  in  spite  of  rumors  to  the 
contrary.  I  was  told  before  arriving  in  England 
that  I  would  be  unable  to  get  meat  without  a  meat 
card,  but  I  found  as  few  evidences  of  meat  cards 
as  I  did  of  great  auks,  which  have  been  extinct  for 
a  number  of  years.  Sugar  and  butter  were  not  to 
be  had  except  in  small,  sickly  portions,  and  I  doubt 
whether  Mr.  Sherlock  Holmes  himself  could  have 
located  any  cream.  It  all  goes  for  the  making  of 
butter.  There  was  milk  in  limited  amounts,  but 
all  that  I  encountered  tasted  suspiciously  as  though 
it  had  been  cleverly  manufactured  from  portions 
of  the  Dover  chalk  cliffs  and  large  quantities  of 
water. 

The  butter  looked  like  butter  and  tasted  like  but- 
ter, but  usually  wasn't  butter  at  all.  It  was  mar- 
garine. Even  margarine  was  not  overplentiful. 
The  English  have  become  skilled  in  the  difficult 
art  of  disguising  a  very  small  piece  of  margarine  as  a 
fairly  large  piece  of  butter.  Sometimes  they  bring 
it  on  in  a  round  pat  which  curves  up  fatly  in  the 
middle.  When  pressed,  however,  it  collapses  and 
becomes  a  disk  about  as  thick  as  a  poker  chip.  If 
one  of  these  butter  pats  could  be  petrified  and 
silvered  it  would  pass  almost  anywhere  as  a  half 
dollar.  At  other  times  they  shave  off  a  piece  and 
curl  it  up  so  that  it  looks  like  a  diminutive  yellow 
football.  This  also  collapses  when  touched,  and 
makes  a  poor  showing  when  applied  to  a  slice  of 
bread.    I  demanded  butter  in  a  London  restaurant 

358 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

one  noon,  and  was  Informed  by  the  waitress  that 
there  wasn't  any,  but  that  the  manager  sometimes 
hid  away  a  bit  of  butter  in  a  drawer  for  the  steady 
customers.  She  went  away  to  see  whether  she 
could  persuade  the  manager  to  part  with  a  piece. 
When  she  returned  she  claimed  that  he  had  neglected 
to  hide  away  any  on  that  particular  day.  The 
financial  director  of  the  American  Red  Cross  in 
London  was  trying  to  show  me  how  to  make  a  small 
piece  of  margarine  stretch  over  an  entire  roll  one 
evening  when  a  head  waiter  approached  and  regaled 
us  with  a  long  and  thrilling  tale  of  how  a  friend  of  his 
in  another  hotel  had  helped  a  man  from  Devonshire 
to  get  a  room  in  a  hotel,  and  of  how  grateful  the 
man  had  been,  and  of  how  he  had  shown  his  gratitude 
by  going  back  to  Devonshire  and  sending  his  bene- 
factor a  whole  pound  of  real  butter.  Real  butter, 
mind  you!  And  a  whole  pound  of  it!  Butter,  like 
most  things  in  England,  is  controlled  by  the  gov- 
ernment and  distributed  over  the  country,  so  that 
one  rarely  gets  a  good  look  at  a  whole  pound  all 
together. 

I  asked  the  head  waiter  how  long  it  had  been 
since  he  had  seen  any  cream.  He  hadn't  seen  any 
for  seven  months.  Sugar  is  also  scarce.  When  it 
appears  on  the  table  at  all  it  appears  in  small, 
mangy-looking  lumps  with  worn-off  corners.  The 
average  lump  of  English  sugar  presents  the  appear- 
ance of  having  been  carried  loose  in  a  haversack 
during  the  four  years  of  the  war.  The  conventional 
English  porridge,  better  known  to  Americans  as 
oatmeal,  is  no  longer  sweetened  with  sugar  in 
England,  but  with  honey.    This  seems  to  have  no 

359 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

effect  on  the  consumption  of  this  dish,  and  each 
Englishman  continues  to  eat  his  weight  in  porridge 
every  seventeen  days. 

But  outside  of  sugar,  butter,  and  cream  there  is 
plenty  to  eat  in  England;  and  if  one  cares  to  go 
over  to  Ireland,  where  England  doesn't  enforce  food 
restrictions,  he  will  find  great  bowls  of  sugar  and 
golden  slabs  of  butter  on  the  tables.  One  of  the 
largest  and  newest  hotels  in  London  serves  an 
excellent  dinner  for  less  than  a  dollar.  Little 
things  like  eggs  and  bacon  aren't  quite  up  to  stand- 
ard. The  English  eggs  are  strangely  debilitated  and 
can  be  cooked  for  long  periods  of  time  without  be- 
ing greatly  affected.  Some  of  those  English  eggs 
should  be  tremendously  popular  in  China,  where 
venerable  eggs  are  highly  esteemed.  Yet  there  have 
been  times  when  I  suspected  strongly  that  some  of 
the  eggs  which  I  got  in  England  had  been  ejected 
from  China  by  the  Chinese  authorities.  The  bacon 
also  had  a  singularly  tired  taste,  as  if  it  had  struggled 
for  years  against  its  fate  and  had  finally  given  up 
the  fight  and  died  and  been  embalmed  by  a  careless 
embalmer  who  used  bad  chemicals.  It  occurs  to  me 
in  passing  that  most  of  the  eggs  to  be  found  in 
England  fall  under  the  head  of  political  eggs,  or 
eggs  which  should  be  used  only  for  throwing  pur- 
poses. In  London  they  tell  a  tale  of  a  woman  who 
had  purchased  a  dozen  eggs  and  didn't  care  much 
about  them  when  she  looked  into  them  in  the  se- 
clusion of  her  home.  She  picked  up  one  of  the  most 
evil  specimens,  marched  back  to  the  shop  where 
she  had  purchased  it,  and  placed  it  on  the  counter 
with  many  signs  of  repugnance.    '*  'Ave  a  whiff  of 

360 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

'er!"  she  commanded.  "It's  a  thing  as  I  wouldn't 
presume  to  throw  at  Lloyd  George's  'ead!" 

According  to  prominent  English  business  men, 
anybody  who  really  wants  a  job  in  England  can  get 
it.  One  of  them  fairly  tore  his  hair  out  over  his 
inabiHty  to  get  workmen  at  any  price.  He  said 
that  he  found  it  almost  impossible,  for  example,  to 
get  carpenters,  electricians,  and  painters  and  that 
when  he  did  succeed  in  getting  them  they  were  so 
independent  that  they  charged  threepence  an  hour 
over  and  above  the  trades-union  rates. 

Most  of  the  large  employers  of  labor  with  whom 
I  talked  agreed  that  the  unrest  was  subsiding. 
Employees,  they  said,  were  becoming  far  more 
amenable  to  discipline  than  they  were  during  and 
immediately  after  the  war.  Where  it  was  formerly 
impossible  to  rebuke  an  employee  without  having 
him  walk  off  in  high  dudgeon,  employers  are  now 
able  to  protest  against  errors  and  slackness  without 
being  left  fiat  on  their  backs  by  the  insulted  workers. 

"For  the  most  part,"  said  the  head  of  a  large 
London  firm,  "employers  realize  that  they  must  do 
more  for  their  employees  than  they  have  done  in 
the  past.  That  realization  is  helping  the  situation 
immensely.  We  have  got  it  firmly  into  our  heads 
at  last  that  we  must  look  after  our  staffs  if  we  want 
to  avoid  trouble  and  general  chaos." 

When  the  government  last  winter  stopped  giving 
the  so-called  dole,  which  was  the  sum  of  money 
granted  weekly  to  all  ex-war  workers  who  were  out 
of  work,  there  was  an  agonized  wail  from  all  labor 
organizations,  and  the  number  of  people  out  of  work 
was  represented  as  being  very  high.     The  figures, 

361 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

however,  tended  to  show  that  there  was  no  more 
unemployment  than  existed  during  pre-war  days. 
Many  British  laborers  had  an  interesting  habit  of 
refusing  to  work  while  they  could  collect  an  out-of- 
work  dole. 

England's  fighting  men  were  well  looked  after. 
In  November,  19 19,  more  than  3,750,000  men  had 
been  demobilized,  and  90  per  cent  of  that  nimiljer 
had  been  absorbed  into  industry. 

Many  ex-officers  had  hard  times  getting  positions. 
There  were  12,000  of  them  without  work  in  London 
at  the  beginning  of  last  winter.  For  the  most  part 
they  had  gone  into  the  army  while  they  were  very 
young  and  before  they  had  learned  anything  about 
business,  and  had  frequently  risen  to  high  positions. 
When  they  left  the  army  they  found  it  difficult  to 
get  anything  but  clerkships,  which  paid  very  small 
wages.  Many  Englishmen  claimed  that  the  ex- 
officers  couldn't  get  positions  because  they  were  too 
proud  to  take  anything  but  the  best.  But  the 
ex-officers  said  they  couldn't  get  anything  at  all. 
One  former  lieutenant-colonel  started  a  livery  stable 
and  frequently  took  his  seat  on  the  box.  Daily  a 
crop  of  them  set  forth  their  pitiable  condition  through 
that  well-known  British  institution,  the  Agony 
Column  of  the  Times.  Do  you  know  the  Agony 
Column?    This  is  how  it  runs: 

C ^E  is  anxiously  waiting  to  hear  from  you.    Broken-hearted. 

— Nick  Y.    "Pudding." 
DISCHARGED  OFFICER,  22,  no  money,  no  prospects.    Do 

anything  for  a  living  wage. — Box  V  65,  The  Times. 
RHODA. — Only  for  you,  dear  love,  do  I  sviflfer  this  ignominy. 

I  know  you  will  be  tnie  and  trust  me  to  the  end. — Hal. 

362 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

IN  DESPERATION  I  APPEAL  by  this  advertisement  to 
anyone  for  a  JOB  at  a  living  wage;  age  35;  single;  enlisted 
August,  1914  (Kitchener's  First  100,000);  commission,  1915; 
demobilized  April,  1919;  over  four  years'  active  foreign 
service;  speak  French,  have  good  commercial  knowledge  and 
am  very  adaptable.  Will  do  anything  or  go  anywhere — 
in  fact  the  farther  away  the  better  from  this  heartbreaking 
country.  Agencies  need  not  reply,  but]  I  sha'n't  be  able 
t^  say  "Yes"  quick  enough  to  the  first  genuine  offer. — S.  0.  S., 
Box  V  35,  The  Times. 

There  is  a  highly  efficient  and  capable  American 
Chamber  of  Commerce  in  London  which  maintains 
large  offices  near  the  heart  of  the  city  and  is  always 
able  to  steer  an  American  toward  the  person  who  can 
give  him  the  most  help.  American  business  men 
who  had  come  over  to  London  to  buy  goods  and  had 
been  unable  to  locate  any  because  of  the  reduced 
production  coupled  with  the  large  amount  of  orders 
on  hand,  and  who  were  consequently  standing  round 
cold  hotel  lobbies  and  making  themselves  general 
nuisances  by  sobbing  out  their  woes  to  anyone  who 
would  drink  a  whisky-and-soda  with  them — these 
depressed  individuals,  after  a  single  trip  to  the 
Arnerican  Chamber  of  Commerce,  would  be  in  a  con- 
stant state  of  elation  because  of  being  put  in  touch 
with  some  one  who  could  sell  them  leather  egg  cups 
or  knitted  nose  warmers  or  buffed  mouse  skins  or 
whatever  it  was  that  they  wanted  to  buy.  That's 
the  specialty  of  the  American  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce in  London  —  putting  people  in  touch  with 
somebody.  They  hold  the  running-high  and  the 
standing-broad  putting-in-touch  record.  They  can 
at  a  moment's  notice  write  a  letter  which  puts 
an  American  in  touch  with  H.  G.  Wells  or^  the 

24  363 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

manager  of  the  Ross-on-Wye  whiffletree  factory  or 
the  auctioneer  who  has  charge  of  the  sale  of  two 
folding  tricycles,  fifty  spittoons,  and  ninety-eight 
Windsor  chairs  at  the  Airship  Station,  Mullion, 
Gary  Cross  Lanes,  Cornwall.  It's  a  great  institu- 
tion and  I'm  glad  to  say  a  good  word  for  it. 

Among  other  things  they  put  me  in  touch  with 
the  Ministry  of  Munitions,  which  seems  to  have 
more  things  to  sell  than  anyone  else  in  England; 
in  fact,  I  didn't  know  that  England  contained  as 
many  things  to  buy  as  the  Ministry  of  Mimitions 
has  to  sell.  Some  of  their  parcels  are  fairly  sizable, 
such  as  a  floating  dock  which  will  receive  vessels 
up  to  350  feet  in  length,  a  cluster  of  obsolete  war- 
ships, and  a  neat  bunch  of  steam  trawlers,  but 
there  are  other  handier  lots,  such  as  half  a  dozen 
huckaback  towels,  60  hair  mattresses,  1,530  coat 
hangers,  a  portable  section  grain-handling  plant, 
2,000  drinking  mugs,  an  80-ton  road  bridge,  2  small 
kitchen  tables,  and  as  many  other  articles  as  there 
are  marks  in  Germany's  war  debt.  I  think  there  is 
nothing  in  the  world  that  the  Ministry  of  Munitions 
hasn't  for  sale.  I  haven't  had  the  opportunity  to 
read  the  extremely  absorbing  book  of  176  pages 
which  the  Ministry  issues  every  little  while.  It 
gives  a  rather  hazy  and  incomplete  idea  of  what 
one  can  purchase  from  the  government.  I  have 
peeped  into  its  pages,  and  it  has  intrigued  me 
greatly,  especially  the  part  which  has  reference  to 
ammunition  boxes.  These  can  be  bought  very 
cheaply,  and  the  book  tells  exactly  how  to  make  tool 
sheds,  summerhouses,  allotment  shelters — though  it 
neglects  to  state  what  an  allotment  shelter  is — 

364 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

meat  safes,  feeding  troughs,  cycle  stands,  coops, 
garden  seats,  and  fencing  out  of  them.  As  I  say,  I 
haven't  read  the  book,  but  I  feel  sure  that  if  I  wanted 
to  buy  enough  clothes  for  an  army  or  a  milHon  hop 
poles  or  a  gross  of  fountain-pen  fillers  or  a  cocktail 
mixer  or  a  couple  of  elephants,  I  could  find  an  address 
in  the  book  which  would  tell  me  just  where  to  get 
them. 

The  Ministry  of  Munitions  reminded  me  how 
American  business  men  were  frequently  going  home 
empty-handed  when  they  had  come  to  England 
with  the  intention  of  buying.  The  stock  of  goods 
which  they  have  for  sale,  they  think,  will,  if  offered 
to  American  buyers,  help  to  re-establish  the  trade 
balance  between  the  two  countries,  and  will  also 
give  American  buyers  goods  on  which  they  can 
obtain  immediate  delivery.  If  I  were  an  American 
buyer  in  London  I  think  that  I'd  make  a  bee  line 
for  the  Disposal  Board  of  the  Ministry  of  Munitions 
at  the  Hotel  Metropole  before  I  went  anywhere  else. 

Production  may  have  slowed  up  in  England  so 
far  as  a  great  many  things  are  concerned,  but  I 
can  state  authoritatively  that  there  is  at  least  one 
thing  which  is  produced  with  as  much  generosity 
as  in  the  palmiest  days.  That  is  suet  pudding. 
Those  who  have  never  been  in  England  are  probably 
imfamiliar  with  suet  pudding.  It  is  a  dessert,  or 
at  least  that  is  what  it  is  called  in  England.  It  is 
gray  and  soggy  and  it  would  take  only  a  very  few 
portions  to  make  a  ton.  One  portion  tossed  lightly 
against  a  wall  would  stick  tenaciously  to  it,  but 
several  portions  tossed  against  the  wall  would  make 
the  wall  fall  over.    The  production  of  suet  pudding 

365 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

has  not  fallen  off  at  all.  It  is  very  difficult  to  gat  any 
other  sort  of  dessert  in  England.  Somebody  ad- 
vanced the  theory  that  a  great  number  of  munition 
workers  have  gone  into  the  manufacture  of  suet 
pudding,  and  that  that  was  the  reason  why  there  is 
so  much  of  it  and  why  it  keeps  up  its  high  standard 
of  deadHness.     The  theory  seems  reasonable. 

The  English  have  always  been  a  very  frank 
people,  but  four  years  of  war  seems  to  have  made 
them  franker  than  ever.  This  post-war  frankness 
has  cropped  out  particularly  in  the  divorce  cases 
which  are  keeping  the  English  courts  working  over- 
time. People  shake  their  heads  sadly  when  they 
think  of  the  enormous  amount  of  work  that  the 
stenographers  and  clerks  and  judges  and  bailiffs 
and  lawyers  are  obliged  to  perform  from  the  be- 
ginning to  the  end  of  the  divorce  season.  The 
situation  is  somewhat  similar  to  a  long  series  of 
million-share  days  on  the  New  York  Stock  Exchange. 
It's  just  a  case  of  work,  work,  work  for  everyone 
connected  with  it. 

The  frankness  of  these  divorce  cases  is  astoimding. 
In  the  old  days  a  lawyer  usually  had  to  drag  un- 
pleasant facts  out  of  the  principals  by  main  force. 
Nowadays  everybody  jumps  blithely  to  the  witness 
stand  and  takes  his  inmost  soul  out  of  hiding  and 
puts  it  through  its  paces  for  the  admiring  throng. 
Nothing  is  held  back.  Usually,  too,  in  the  old  days 
the  principals  waited  for  their  sins  to  find  them  out. 
Now  they  appear  to  take  the  greatest  deHght  in 
frankly  confessing  their  sins  in  long  letters  to  one 
another.  These  letters  are  produced  in  court  and 
read  loudly  to  the  world.     On  the  following  day  all 

366 


MERRIE  ENGLAND 

the  newspapers  carry  long,  unexpurgated  accounts 
of  the  proceedings.  The  English  newspapers  have 
always  made  a  point  of  objecting  to  the  yellowness 
of  American  newspapers,  but  there  are  very  few 
American  newspapers,  I  think,  which  would  print 
such  unpleasant  divorce  cases  with  the  complete 
attention  to  detail  that  the  English  papers  display. 
England  may  be  spending  money,  but  she  is  doing 
it  in  a  very  decorous  way.  The  theaters  are  jammed 
every  night,  but  the  people  aren't  tossing  their 
money  to  speculators  in  order  to  get  the  seats. 
Long  lines  of  people  form  outside  the  theaters  every 
night.  Sometimes  for  an  eight-o'clock  performance 
the  line  starts  to  form  as  early  as  half  past  five 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  The  restaurants  are 
crowded  to  the  doors  every  night;  but  for  every 
person  who  drinks  champagne  there  are  a  great 
many  who  don't.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  en- 
thusiasm in  England  over  the  one-step  and  the 
fox-trot,  which  the  American  army  popularized, 
and  American  capital  has  started  several  dancing 
places  in  London  in  the  past  two  years.  All  of  them 
have  coined  money.  The  largest  of  them  all  was 
opened  during  the  past  few  months,  and  the  middle- 
class  English  flock  to  it  in  droves.  But  no  alcoholic 
drinks  are  served  in  it,  and  the  dancing  is  the  most 
austere  proceeding  that  can  be  imagined.  The 
two  American  managers  watch  the  dancers  like  a 
pair  of  sharp-shinned  hawks,  and  the  second  a 
couple  shows  an  inclination  to  shimmy  a  bit,  or 
even  to  semishimmy,  one  of  them  dashes  out  on  the 
floor  and  breaks  the  news  that  it  isn't  done;  it  isn't 
the  ordinary  way.     And  austerity  reigns  once  more. 

367 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

England  is  spending  money,  but  she's  making 
money  as  well.  No  one  can  accuse  her  of  joy- 
riding to  destruction. 

One  of  London's  biggest  business  men — an  Amer- 
ican, by  the  way — was  perfectly  contented  with  the 
outlook. 

"Of  course  they're  spending,"  he  said,  "and  they'll 
keep  right  on.  They're  saving  as  well.  My  pay 
roll,  for  example,  is  twice  what  it  was  in  nineteen 
fifteen.  We  subscribed  to  seventy-five  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  war-saving  certificates  and  offered 
them  to  our  employees,  with  a  small  bonus  to  the 
lucky  number.  They  were  taken  in  two  days.  We 
took  another  seventy-five  thousand  dollars'  worth, 
and  they  were  gone  in  three  days.  Now  we're  going 
to  take  another  seventy -five  thousand  dollars'  worth, 
and  they'll  be  gone  in  a  few  days  as  well.  Some 
people  think  that  because  fifty  pianos  are  sold  in 
a  short  time  the  country  is  going  to  the  devil.  It 
isn't.  England  is  less  off  an  even  keel  than  any 
country  in  the  world.  We  have  unrest  here,  but  it 
produces  less  high  waves  of  discontent  than  it  does 
anywhere  else.  The  common  sense  of  the  British 
people  is  emphasizing  itself  and  will  continue  to  em- 
phasize itself  during  these  difficult  after- war  days." 


VIII 
SCHIEBER  LAND 

CERTAIN  conditions  are  too  frequently  regarded 
as  being  typical  of  the  land  which  produces 
them.  There  are  many  parts  of  Europe  where 
country  life  in  America  is  thought  to  consist  of  the 
pursuit  of  malevolent  red  Indians  by  tough,  hardy 
men  in  hairy  pants  and  unbuttoned  vests.  Large 
numbers  of  people  still  think  of  Brazil  as  being 
chiefly  made  up  of  a  large,  tropical  river  edged  with 
Brazil  nut  trees  from  whose  branches  the  amusing 
monkey  swings  idly  by  his  tail  and  throws  nuts  in  a 
wanton  manner  at  passing  voyagers,  amid  the 
vociferous  applause  of  vast  flocks  of  parrots  and 
parrakeets.  Borneo  is  supposed  by  some  to  be 
populated  entirely  by  wild  men,  just  like  the  one 
that  had  the  cage  between  the  bearded  lady  and  the 
Circassian  beauty. 

Similarly,  when  a  newspaper  report  from  Luska- 
looloo,  Ohio,  announces  that  during  a  heavy  rain- 
storm the  raindrops  were  mixed  up  with  small 
turtles,  poUywogs,  and  kippered  herring,  visitors  to 
Luskalooloo  expect  to  turn  their  ankles  on  a  few 
turtles  whenever  they  round  a  corner.  They  are 
usually  somewhat  surprised  when  they  fail  to 
encounter  any. 

369 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Many  travelers  who  entered  Germany  from 
Scandinavian  countries,  from  Belgium,  and  from 
Holland  last  winter  came  in  with  their  arm  sockets 
creaking  and  their  knee  joints  buckling  because  of 
the  large  amount  of  food  that  they  carried.  They 
had  heard  reports  that  Germany  was  starving. 
Food,  they  had  been  told,  was  as  rare  in  Berlin 
as  humming  birds  at  the  South  Pole,  and  they  were 
prepared  to  defend  their  provisions  with  their  lives 
and  seek  nourishment  from  their  boots  when  they 
had  finished  the  food. 

Just  before  Christmas  of  last  winter,  while  talking 
with  a  government  official  in  the  Foreign  Office  on 
Wilhelmstrasse,  a  pile  of  magazines  caught  my  eye. 
They  were  printed  in  English.  Being  far  from  home, 
the  English  type  thrilled  me.  I  picked  up  one  of  the 
magazines  and  found  that  it  was  a  very  celebrated 
publication  printed  in  America  for  German-Amer- 
icans. It  had  made  fairly  good  time  to  Berlin,  for  it 
was  the  November  issue.  And  there  were  twenty  or 
thirty  copies  of  this  same  issue  in  the  pile.  There  is 
no  reason,  of  course,  why  copies  of  any  magazine 
shouldn't  be  lying  around  the  German  Foreign 
Office  in  the  greatest  profusion,  now  that  the  war 
is  over  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  This  particular 
magazine  makes  a  good  deal  of  noise  about  being 
published  for  America  above  all  others,  and  for 
America  alone,  and  it  makes  frequent  mention  of 
the  fact  that  it  is  not  "playing  the  game"  of  any 
nation  other  than  America.  But  there  it  was  in 
Wilhelmstrasse,  and  in  its  pages  there  were  fre- 
quent allusions  to  starving  Germany.  There  was 
a   harrowing   picture    of  "a    little    victim   of    the 

370 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

hunger  blockade,"  reproduced  from  an  original 
photograph. 

I  might  add  that  tales  of  starving  Germany  and 
little  victims  of  the  hunger  blockade  are  dinned 
into  the  traveler's  ears  from  all  sides  while  he  is  in 
German  territory.  Traveling  Americans  seem  to 
hear  a  trifle  more  of  that  sort  of  talk  than  any  other 
people. 

The  true  state  of  affairs,  I  believe,  is  this:  in  the 
industrial  centers  of  Germany  there  are  many  chil- 
dren, and  grown  people  as  well,  who  are  very  badly 
nourished,  indeed.  They  are  in  bad  physical  shape 
because  of  a  lack  of  fats  and  milk  over  a  long  period 
of  time.  They  are  not  so  badly  off  as  they  were 
immediately  after  the  armistice  in  November,  1918. 
This  state  of  affairs  could  be  greatly  improved  if 
Germany  would  adapt  herself  to  conditions  in  the 
same  way  that  England  and  France  and  America 
do.  But  she  won't.  She  cheats.  And  she  makes 
political  capital  out  of  her  undernourished  children. 
She  uses  them  to  gain  sympathy  and  leniency  in  the 
outside  world.     Above  all,  she  cheats. 

The  Germans  have,  since  the  war,  applied  a 
new  name  to  an  ancient  type  of  person.  Broadly 
speaking,  he  is  the  man  who  makes  money  out  of 
the  misfortunes  of  his  fellow  men.  He  is  called  a 
Schieber.  Literally,  a  Schieber  is  one  who  shoves, 
the  idea  being  that  he  gets  something  at  a  low  price 
and  shoves  it  along  to  some  one  else  at  a  high  price. 
Actually,  he  is  a  man  who  cheats  by  dealing  in  goods 
in  which  he  is  not  legitimately  entitled  to  deal,  such 
as  flour  and  bread  and  sugar  and  meat.  These  goods 
^e  supposed  to  be  under  government  control,  so 

371 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

that  everybody  can  have  an  equal  amount.  But  the 
Schieber  sells  them  at  a  high  price  to  those  who  are 
unwilling  to  subsist  on  a  government  ration.  The 
word  has  come  to  be  applied  to  anyone  who  is 
making  large  and  sudden  profits.  There  is  no  other 
word  in  the  German  language  which  is  heard  quite 
so  frequently  nowadays,  except  "J a,"  "Nein,"  and 
'  *  Bitte. "  "  Kultur ' '  is  heavily  outclassed  by  * '  Schie- 
ber," as  is  "KoUossal." 

If  the  Schieber  cheats  by  selling  at  a  profit  the 
foodstuffs  which  he  is  not  supposed  to  sell,  then 
there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  in  Ger- 
many cheating  by  purchasing  from  the  Schieber  the 
food  which  they  are  not  supposed  to  eat.  If  the 
children  of  Germany  are  starving,  as  the  Germans 
claim  so  loudly,  then  the  people  who  buy  the  food 
which  the  children  ought  to  have  are  as  bad  as  the 
Schiebers.  Therefore  I  say  that  Germany  is  a  land 
of  Schiebers,  who  refuse  to  live  up  to  the  rules. 

In  England,  when  there  is  a  shortage  of  certain 
sorts  of  food,  the  food  is  rationed.  That  is  so  in 
France  and  also  in  America. 

Everybody  suffers  during  a  shortage,  unless  he 
happens  to  have  on  hand  a  large  stock  of  the  food 
in  which  the  shortage  occurs. 

In  Germany  there  is  no  shortage  so  acute  that  all 
of  the  people  suffer.  The  poor  suffer,  but  the  rich 
continue  to  have  everything.  And  they  continue 
to  howl  and  shriek  about  the  little  victims  of  the 
hunger  blockade.  They  tell  you,  over  their  thick 
soups  and  their  golden  butter  and  their  white  bread 
and  their  rich  wines,  how  the  little  ones  are  starving 
to  death.    They  get  terribly  excited  over  it.    "There 

372 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

you  sit,"  cried  one  Prussian  woman  to  an  American 
diplomat  in  Beriin — "there  you  sit  with  a  hundred 
billion  dollars  in  gold  in  your  pockets  and  won't 
buy  our  babies  a  can  of  milk!" 

I  do  not  claim  that  there  is  not  suffering  in  Berlin 
and  in  all  the  industrial  regions  of  Germany  where 
large  numbers  of  people  are  crowded  together. 
There  is.  Large  masses  of  the  city  children  of 
Germany  are  most  wretchedly  nourished  because  of 
the  lack  of  milk  and  fats.  But  I  repeat,  and  I  insist, 
that  if  Germany  would  live  up  to  the  rules  there 
would  be  far  less  suffering  than  there  now  is.  I 
repeat  that  Germany  is  using  her  poorly  nourished 
children  as  poUtical  propaganda  to  create  sympathy 
in  the  outside  world.  There  is  no  such  suffering  or 
hunger  or  starvation  in  Germany  as  there  is  in  Po- 
land, the  world's  only  barrier  against  the  Bolshevik 
armies.  I  have  heard  Germans  moaning  about  the 
pitiable  conditions  in  Austria,  conditions  which  are 
unquestionably  true,  but  I  have  never  heard  a 
single  German  emitting  the  slightest  semblance  of  a 
moan  over  the  ghastly  conditions  in  Poland,  devas- 
tated by  the  passage  of  armies  and  stripped  of  her 
cattle  and  her  wealth  and  her  means  of  industrial 
livelihood  by  the  Germans  themselves.  The  Ger- 
mans are  making  a  most  heartrending  outcry  against 
the  peace  terms  to  every  American  that  comes  along, 
but  I  was  unable  to  detect  any  signs  of  sympathy 
on  the  part  of  any  German  for  any  suffering  which 
other  countries — with  the  exception  of  Austria — 
endured  during  the  war  and  are  now  enduring. 

After  I  had  seen  the  magazine  which  is  supposed 
to  be  printed  for  America  above  all  others  and  for 

373 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

America  alone,  but  which  was  of  sufficient  interest 
to  Germans  to  be  lying  around  the  German  Foreign 
Office,  I  expressed  a  desire  to  see  some  Berlin  children 
in  large  numbers.  The  children  that  I  had  seen  on 
the  street  seemed  no  different  to  me,  for  the  most 
part,  than  the  children  that  one  might  see  on  the 
streets  of  Sanford  (Maine),  Sandusky  (Ohio),  or 
San  Francisco,  except  that  their  clothing  was  neater 
and  they  made  less  noise.  That,  of  course,  was  no 
test. 

So  I  was  taken  to  a  Christmas  party  given  by  a 
Berlin  film  company  for  eight  hundred  school  children 
from  one  of  the  poor  districts  of  the  city.  The 
amiable  American-German  woman  who  received  me 
assured  me  that  the  eight  hundred  children  came 
from  eight  different  schools  and  that  from  each 
school  only  the  poorest  children  had  been  selected. 

I  looked  them  over  and  they  didn't  look  par- 
ticularly well.  They  ranged  in  age  from  eight  to 
twelve  years  old,  and  the  boys  were  so  universally 
sallow  and  thin  and  their  hair  was  cropped  so  short 
that  they  looked  as  though  they  had  all  been  hacked 
out  of  the  same  piece  of  wood  by  the  same  machine. 
There  were  queer  yellowish-pinkish  circles  under 
their  eyes  and  they  seemed  to  have  little  or  no  energy. 
The  girls  looked  better,  but  not  much  better.  It  was 
two  days  before  Christmas,  mind  you,  and  every  one 
of  these  eight  hundred  children  was  to  receive  a  fat 
Christmas  package  and  some  money  with  which  to 
buy  himself  something  more.  Yet  they  sat  in  that 
hall  without  a  sound  except  when  they  started  to 
sing  some  song  like  "Tannenbaum"  or  "Heilige 
Nacht,"  and  sang  it  through  from  beginning  to  end 

374 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

without  missing  a  word.  In  America  any  eight 
hundred  children  under  similar  circumstances  would 
have  been  making  such  an  uproar  that  even  the 
loudest  and  most  persistent  thinker,  such  as  the 
late  Thomas  Carlyle  or  the  even  later  John  L. 
Epictetus,  would  have  been  quite  unable  to  hear 
himself  evolve  a  thought. 

My  guide,  however,  was  not  satisfied  with  the 
appearance  of  the  eight  hundred  children.  She 
thought  that  they  looked  too  healthy,  and  she  was 
afraid  that  I  would  get  the  idea  that  the  German 
children  were  too  well  off.  She  felt  quite  sure  that 
the  woman  was  wrong  when  she  said  that  the  eight 
hundred  were  the  poorest  children  from  eight  schools. 
In  fact,  she  hinted  broadly  that  they  were  probably 
the  eight  hundred  richest  children.  I  pointed  out 
that  the  woman  who  was  running  the  show  probably 
knew  what  she  was  talking  about,  but  my  guide  was 
still  skeptical.  She  would  like  to  show  me  the 
children  in  some  hospitals.  I  assured  her  that  I 
didn't  care  to  pick  my  examples  from  hospitals, 
any  more  than  I  would  want  to  judge  the  children 
of  Boston  from  the  inmates  of  the  Children's  Hospital 
on  Huntington  Avenue.  So  my  guide  suggested  go- 
ing to  a  school  where  she  knew  that  the  children 
were  really  poor  children. 

We  went  there.  A  class  had  been  assembled  at  my 
guide's  request,  for  the  Christmas  holidays  were  in 
force.  We  saw  a  matter  of  thirty  children  about 
seven  years  of  age.  They  were  sallow  and  they  had 
circles  under  their  eyes  and  they  were  thin.  They 
were  dressed  just  about  as  well  as  average  American 
school  diildren  of  the  same  age.    They  looked  very 

375 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

badly  nourished  and  I  was  very  deeply  touched  by 
them. 

Some  years  ago  I  worked  on  a  Boston  newspaper 
which  annually  played  Santa  Claus  to  the  poor 
children  of  the  city,  collecting  money  from  its 
readers  and  distributing  gifts  to  every  child  who 
wrote  to  the  paper  expressing  a  wish  for  one.  The 
paper's  reporters  worked  day  and  night  overseeing 
the  distribution  of  the  gifts.  It  was  soon  found  that 
the  reporters  were  so  affected  by  the  poverty  and 
suffering  which  they  encountered  that  they  would 
not  only  give  away  all  their  money  to  the  sufferers, 
but  also  obtain  advances  on  their  salaries  and  give 
much  more  than  they  could  afford.  I  speak  of  this 
to  show  that  unpleasant  conditions  exist  in  every 
country  in  the  world,  even  in  the  land  whose  people 
sit  with  one  hundred  billion  dollars  in  gold  in  their 
pockets  and  won't  buy  German  babies  a  can  of  milk. 

I  questioned  the  children  who  seemed  to  be  the 
thinnest  and  sallowest.  One  was  the  child  of  a 
railroad  engineer;  one  a  policeman's  son;  one  a 
cab  driver's  child.  For  breakfast  they  had  eaten 
bread  and  jam.  Only  five  of  them  had  had  milk 
recently,  and  they  had  had  it  because  they  were  ill 
and  the  doctor  had  sold  them  a  prescription  for  it. 
Their  families  lived  on  the  rations  which  govern- 
ment bread  and  meat  and  potato  and  cereal  cards 
permitted  them  to  buy  at  a  cheap  price.  They 
didn't  cheat.  Therefore  the  children  were  not  get- 
ting enough  of  the  proper  sort  of  food. 

But  remember  this:  the  children  that  I  saw  were 
admittedly  the  poorest  children  from  the  poorest 
sections   of   Berlin.    There   are   many   others   not 

376 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

nearly  so  badly  off.  And  in  the  country  the  children 
have  whatever  they  want  to  eat.  At  any  rate,  all 
the  Germans  say  that  they  do  and  all  the  Germans 
agree  that  conditions  during  the  past  winter  were 
far  better  than  they  were  in  the  winter  following  the 
armistice. 

Now  on  the  same  day  that  I  saw  the  eight  hundred 
poor  school  children,  with  their  sallow  faces  and 
their  thin  bodies  and  their  hollow  eyes,  I  started 
out  with  an  American  who  is  in  Berlin  on  official 
business  to  see  whether  all  the  Berliners  are  suffering 
aHke. 

I  will  say  at  this  jimcture  that  they  are  not  all 
suffering  alike.  I  will  furthermore  remark  that  the 
energy  and  even  violence  with  which  they  are  not 
suffering  alike  is  probably  unequaled  to-day  in  any 
part  of  the  world.  In  Berlin  there  is  more  wanton 
spending  and  more  license  and  more  debauchery  and 
more  vice  than  I  have  encountered  in  any  of  the 
many  cities  I  have  visited  since  that  summer  day 
in  1 9 14  when  the  German  army  started  the  world 
on  its  wild  career  of  blood  and  devastation  and 
misery. 

We  started  in  the  largest  restaurant  in  the  city. 
It  is  an  awe-inspiring  mass  of  red  plush  and  gold, 
and  in  the  exact  center  there  is  a  large  fountain  with 
tiny  streams  spraying  inward  from  the  outer  edge, 
so  that  it  looks  like  a  large  needle  bath  and  is  very 
imposing.  We  got  there  at  eight  o'clock,  which  is  a 
trifle  early  for  dinner  in  Berlin,  The  proper  hour  is 
half  past  eight.  Anybody  who  enters  a  large 
restaurant  before  that  hour  usually  has  to  sit  all 
alone,  surrounded  by  nothing  but  vast  distances  and 

377 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

slightly  offended  German  waiters.  A  German  waiter 
is  a  very  superior  person  and  is  easily  offended  by  any 
infringement  on  the  conventions.  When  he  is  of- 
fended he  shows  it  by  not  being  there  when  you 
want  him  and  by  always  being  there  when  you 
don't  want  him.  It  is  no  uncommon  thing  for  an 
offended  German  waiter  to  take  two  hours  to  serve 
a  frugal  repast.  Some  time  ago  the  German  waiters 
struck  to  have  lo  per  cent  added  to  all  bills,  so  that 
their  self-respect  would  no  longer  be  damaged  by 
taking  tips.  The  extra  lo  per  cent  is  divided  pro- 
portionally among  the  waiters.  But  in  spite  of  this 
extra  charge  the  waiters  frequently  become  quite 
offended  if  an  additional  tip  is  not  given. 

We  sat  alone  for  a  time,  offending  the  waiters  by 
our  presence.  We  ordered  a  thick  soup  and  goose 
breast  and  vegetables  and  butter  and  champagne 
and  dessert  and  coffee  and  milk.  We  would  have 
preferred  beer  rather  than  champagne,  but  none  of 
the  good  Berlin  restaurants  allow  beer  to  be  served. 
They  don't  allow  it  because  if  they  did  undesirables 
would  come  in  and  hang  around  and  spend  hours 
sucking  up  a  single  glass  of  beer.  We  had  goose 
breast  because  neither  of  us  had  at  that  time  learned 
the  proper  manner  in  which  to  wink  at  a  waiter  in 
order  to  get  a  beefsteak  instead  of  a  goose  breast. 
The  regulation  foods  in  Berlin  restaurants  are  goose 
breast,  goose  liver,  hare,  and  venison,  all  of  which 
food  can  be  had  without  meat  cards.  They  get 
very  tiresome  after  a  while,  and  when  they  become 
tiresome  one  learns  how  to  wink  at  a  waiter.  After 
one  has  learned,  one  says  to  a  waiter,  "Bring  some 
of  that  goose  breast,  Gus."    Then  one  winks  preg- 

378 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

nantly.  The  waiter  bows  and  goes  away,  and  in 
half  an  hour  or  so  he  returns  with  a  tender  piece  of 
beefsteak.  By  half  past  eight  the  restaurant  was 
filled  with  well-fed-looking  individuals  and  hand- 
somely gowned  women,  all  of  whom  knew  how  to 
wink  at  the  waiter.  We  seemed  to  be  the  only 
people  who  weren't  eating  meat — meat  which  the 
poor  can  only  get  on  meat  cards  if  they  are  unable 
to  pay  more  than  the  government-regulated  price. 
Everyone  in  the  restaurant  was  drinking  some  sort 
of  wine — usually  champagne;  and  there  were  prob- 
ably two  hundred  and  fifty  people  there.  I  should 
say  that  nobody  consumed  less  than  one  hundred 
marks'  worth  of  food  and  drink,  especially  drink. 
Champagne  cost  60  marks  per  quart,  and  though 
60  marks  represented  only  $1.20  to  an  American 
during  my  visit  to  Berlin,  they  represented  a  con- 
siderable slice  of  the  week's  wages  to  the  average 
German.  Everybody  in  the  restaurant  sopped  up 
champagne  like  a  sponge,  but  nobody  got  "likkered 
up,"  as  the  saying  goes.  I  don't  know  whether  it 
was  the  fault  of  the  champagne  or  of  the  depressing 
Berlin  weather  or  of  the  German  temperament  or  of 
the  general  atmosphere  of  gloom  which  pervaded 
Germany,  but  the  more  the  Germans  drank  the  more 
morose  they  became  over  their  good  times.  A 
crowd  of  Germans  having  a  jolly  session  in  a  res- 
taurant or  a  cabaret  was  about  as  jovial  and  spon- 
taneous as  a  coroner's  inquest. 

After  dinner  we  moved  over  to  Berlin's  largest 

dance  hall,  though  to  call  it  a  dance  hall  is  rather  an 

injustice.     It  is  a  huge  and  gorgeous  place,  with 

enough    tables    to    accommodate    upward    of    six 

25  379 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

hundred  people.  The  dancing  floor,  which  is  not 
overlarge,  is  circled  with  tables,  and  at  one  end  is  a 
large  hall,  raised  a  few  steps  from  the  dancing  floor, 
in  which  the  bulk  of  the  people  sit  and  thrust  their 
noses  into  their  champagne.  Nothing  but  wine  is 
permitted  in  this  super  dance  hall.  Anybody  who 
insisted  on  having  beer  would,  I  suspect,  be  severely 
hated  by  all  the  waiters.  The  place  was  crammed. 
Whenever  the  band  struck  up  the  inevitable  Amer- 
ican dance — and  the  Berlin  bands  play  nothing  but 
American  tunes — the  dancing  floor  became  a  solid 
mass  of  people,  jamming  their  elbows  into  one 
another,  pushing  their  hands  into  other  people's 
faces,  and  treading  solidly  on  one  another's  feet. 
It  was  a  gay,  abandoned  performance,  and  the 
Germans  went  at  it  very  seriously.  There  was  a 
look  of  grim  determination  on  the  face  of  every 
dancer.  He  was  going  to  have  a  good  time  if  it 
killed  him.  He  never  applauded  a  dance,  and  the 
band  never  played  an  encore.  He  saw  his  duty 
and  he  did  it.  Whenever  the  band  played  he 
danced,  and  when  the  band  stopped  playing  he  went 
back  to  his  table  and  took  another  shot  of  champagne. 
Promptly  at  half  past  eleven  the  lights  began 
to  go  out  and  the  people  began  to  file  into  the 
street.  The  coal  shortage,  you  see,  required  early 
closing.  And  did  the  people  go  home  ?  Not  so  that 
it  could  be  noticed  by  the  casual  passer-by.  They 
went  rolling  off  down  the  street  to  various  all-night 
caf^s.  All  that  one  needed  to  do  was  to  follow  a 
crowd.  He  would  come  to  a  dark  doorway  with  a 
glum-looking  bandit  in  front  of  it.  As  he  approached, 
the  bandit  would  open  the  door  with  a  mysterious 

380 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

air  and  he  would  find  himself  in  a  regulation  restau- 
rant with  all  lights  blazing,  an  orchestra  going  at 
top  speed,  and  everybody  drinking  the  same  old 
saccharine-sweetened  champagne.  Here  he  could 
sit  and  eat  and  dr  nk  until  two  or  three  or  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning  if  he  desired,  and  watch  the 
Germans  devote  all  their  energies  to  enjoying  them- 
selves. Occasionally,  as  the  night  wore  on,  he 
would  see  a  pair  of  them  rise  and  one-step  heavily 
up  and  down  the  narrow  space  between  the  tables, 
bumping  into  several  of  the  revelers,  knocking  over 
a  chair  or  two,  and  upsetting  a  vase  of  flowers  or  a 
dish  of  near,  or  Ersatz,  caviare  from  one  of  the  tables. 
I  don't  know  where  the  Germans  get  their  Ersatz 
caviare,  but  I  suspect  that  they  make  it  out  of  sand 
which  has  been  dipped  in  fish  glue.  At  any  rate, 
that's  how  it  tastes. 

In  Berlin  alone  there  are  approximately  two 
hundred  of  these  all-night  restaurants,  gayly  using 
countless  electric  lights  during  coal  shortages. 
Night  after  night  they  are  filled  with  revelers 
reveling  in  their  own  stolid  fashion  and  eating  vast 
quantities  of  forbidden  food  while  the  rest  of  the 
nation  converses  glibly  of  starving  children. 

In  the  cafes  of  the  good  Berlin  hotels  during 
the  winter,  candles  were  brought  to  every  table  at 
half  past  nine  and  all  the  electric  Hghts  were  switched 
off  because  of  the  coal  shortage.  The  effect  was 
excellent  until  one  went  around  the  corner  to  the 
all-night  joints  and  found  all  the  lights  burning  with 
unabated  brilliancy. 

The  Germans  themselves  protest  that  it  is  unfair 
to  make  much  of  the  revelry,  because  the  people  who 

381 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTERS 

indulge  in  it  are  not,  as  they  put  it,  Germans.  They 
are  all  foreigners  and  Schiebers — Swedes  and  Danes 
and  Dutchmen  and  Swiss  and  Americans.  No  de- 
cent German  woman  would  defile  herself  by  going 
to  such  places,  they  claim.  That  is  unquestionably 
true.  As  for  all  the  reveling  being  done  by  for- 
eigners, that  is  true  to  a  very  small  degree.  It  does 
not  alter  the  fact  that  the  Germans  aren't  playing 
the  game.  If  there  is  a  coal  shortage  in  Germany, 
it  doesn't  matter  whether  a  German  wastes  the  coal 
or  a  Swede  or  a  Dutchman.  It's  wasted,  and  that's 
all  there  is  to  it.  If  there  is  a  food  shortage  and 
children  are  starving,  nobody  has  the  right  to  eat 
more  than  his  share.  During  a  shortage  in  America 
or  England  everybody  shares  alike.  They  aren't 
willing  to  do  that  in  Germany,  and  the  fact  remains 
that  throughout  last  winter  Germany  had  sufficient 
food  to  ration  everybody  alike,  and  to  deliver  the 
ration.  In  some  other  countries — Poland,  for  one — 
there  wasn't  enough  food  to  deliver  a  minimum 
ration  if  everybody  had  been  rationed  alike. 

On  the  day  I  arrived  in  Berlin,  shortly  before 
Christmas,  the  hotels  and  restaurants  were  striking 
against  an  honest  observance  of  the  food  laws.  The 
government  had  passed  a  law  that  people  should  not 
buy  food  except  on  food  cards.  It  was  utterly 
ignored  by  everyone  who  had  enough  to  buy  food 
from  the  Schiebers;  and  the  government  didn't 
strain  itself  to  enforce  the  law.  None  the  less,  the 
law  existed,  and  if  the  government  had  cared  to 
enforce  it  almost  everybody  in  Germany  could  have 
been  incarcerated  in  the  nearest  calaboose.  The 
hotels  and  restaurants  always  saw  to  it  that  their 

382 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

guests  were  plentifully  supplied  with  meat  and 
sugar  and  eggs  and  butter  and  milk,  and  in  order 
to  purchase  such  things  they  had  to  buy  illegally. 
The  thought  of  what  might  happen  to  them  in  case 
the  law  were  enforced  was  an  extremely  poignant 
one,  so  they  struck  to  have  the  law  repealed.  They 
claimed  that  if  they  lived  up  to  the  law  they  couldn't 
feed  their  guests.  The  strike  consisted  of  closing 
every  restaurant  in  town  for  two  days.  Not  a  hotel 
served  a  particle  of  food  in  any  dining  room  or 
private  room  during  these  two  days.  Not  a  cafe 
was  open.  It  was  one  of  the  most  enthusiastic 
strikes  that  I  have  ever  seen.  There  was  no  cheat- 
ing on  it.  In  my  innocent  childish  way  I  started 
out  to  persuade  a  restaurant  to  feed  me,  but  after 
two  hours  of  fruitless  hunting  I  staggered  hungrily 
back  to  my  hotel  and  hung  around  the  room  of  the 
Associated  Press  representatives  until  they  felt 
obliged  to  share  their  lunch  with  me.  I  also  per- 
suaded them  to  invite  me  to  return  for  dinner.  I 
could,  it  is  true,  have  got  food  in  a  grocery  store, 
but  if  I  had  depended  on  a  hotel  or  restaurant  I 
wouldn't  have  eaten.  This  first  strike  was  only  a 
two-day  strike,  but  the  hotels  and  restaurants 
planned  to  follow  it  with  longer  and  longer  strikes 
until  the  government  finally  repealed  its  law  against 
the  illicit  buying  of  food.  There  were  signs,  how- 
ever, that  when  the  next  strike  took  place  the 
striking  restaurants  would  do  a  little  cheating  and 
arrange  things  so  that  persons  who  knew  the  ropes 
could  get  food.  This  would  give  rise  to  the  complex 
situation  of  people  striking  for  the  right  to  be  dis- 
honest and  of  not  even  being  able  to  be  honest  in 

383 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

their  effort  to  be  dishonest,  if  you  know  what  I 
mean. 

Not  only  are  the  wealthy  Berliners  spending  money 
on  food  and  champagne  while  the  poor  go  without, 
but  all  the  Berliners  seem  to  be  getting  rid  of  all 
the  money  they  can  as  fast  as  they  can.  They  are 
not  overparticular  how  they  get  rid  of  it.  Almost 
any  way  seems  to  appeal  to  them.  Some  of  them 
send  it  out  of  the  country  in  large  bales.  This  is 
known  as  the  Flight  of  Capital.  Others  gamble  it 
away.  There  are  lots  of  gambling  houses  in  Berlin, 
and  it  is  popularly  reported  that  the  croupiers  are 
so  busy  hauling  in  money  with  their  little  rakes  that 
several  of  them  have  developed  housemaid's  knee  in 
their  elbows.  This  sounds  a  bit  exaggerated,  but 
the  information  cost  me  nothing,  and  I  pass  it  on  for 
what  it's  worth.  There  are  also  three  race  tracks 
in  Berlin,  and  the  betting  that  has  gone  on  at  these 
tracks  since  the  war  would  make  the  most  hardened 
New  Orleans  bookmaker  cry  like  a  child.  The 
amount  of  money  that  changed  hands  in  one  day 
on  the  three  tracks  was  4,000,000  marks.  Char- 
women, laborers,  Schiebers — people  of  all  sorts — were 
begging  piteously  to  have  their  money  taken  away 
from  them.  Great  numbers  of  the  betters  never 
saw  the  races  and  merely  went  out  to  the  tracks  to 
get  their  money  up.  Charwomen  discussed  the 
merits  of  the  different  horses  as  fluently  as  stable 
owners. 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people  went  to 
the  BerUn  race  tracks  in  one  day.  On  race  days 
every  imaginable  conveyance  was  pressed  into 
service  to  take  the  people  to  the  tracks.     Fashionable 

384 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

folk  were  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  go  out  in  the 
workmen's  carts.  A  taxicab  could  make  almost  as 
much  in  two  trips  as  a  laborer  could  earn  in  a  month. 
At  the  tracks  another  severe  jolt  was  administered 
to  the  popular  belief  that  Germans  drink  nothing 
but  beer,  for  beer  was  almost  an  unknown  quantity. 
Everybody  drank  wine — Moselle  or  Rhine  wine  or 
saccharine-sweetened  champagne. 

The  German  government  sits  down  rather  heavily 
on  the  betting  figures,  because  it  is  evidently  none 
too  proud  of  its  share  in  encouraging  the  money- 
scattering  orgy.  There  is  a  law  against  gambHng, 
so  that  gambling  houses  are  illegal.  Yet  the  race- 
track gambling  is  permitted,  and  the  government 
shares  in  the  bets,  taking  a  clean  50  per  cent.  As 
I  say,  the  government  is  averse  to  giving  out  in- 
formation on  the  subject,  so  that  I  am  unable  to 
quote  exact  figures.  The  government  also  squats 
cozily  on  the  state  lottery  figures.  The  lotteries  are 
extremely  popular  with  the  people,  and  they  throw 
their  money  into  them  with  the  utmost  abandon, 
but  the  government  hates  to  admit  that  it  is  en- 
couraging gambling  to  such  an  extent.  The  Prus- 
sian state  lotteries  take  place  every  month.  The 
capital  prize  is  500,000  marks,  and  there  are  many 
other  prizes,  of  course.  Almost  everybody  plays 
the  lottery. 

Every  cabaret,  every  dance  hall,  every  theater, 
and  every  moving-picture  theater  in  Berlin,  as  well 
as  all  over  Germany,  is  crowded  every  night.  The 
theaters  are  presenting  plays  whose  standards  of 
morality  are  low  enough  to  walk  under  the  door  of  a 
safe-deposit  vault.     In  Berlin  there  are  three  plays 

385 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

in  particular  which  are  so  obscene  and  degenerate 
that  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  any  government 
permitting  them  to  run.  These  plays — "Pandora's 
Box,"  "Erdgeist,"  and  "Schloss  Wetterstein "— are 
playing  nightly  to  standing  room  only.  "Erdgeist," 
which  was  forbidden  under  the  old  regime  because 
of  its  nastiness,  has  played  for  a  solid  year  to  packed 
houses.  The  French  stage  some  plays  which  are 
extremely  loose,  to  put  it  conservatively,  but  they 
seldom  go  in  for  straight  filth,  as  do  the  Germans. 
The  Germans  are  also  working  a  great  deal  of 
obscenity  into  their  films.  Some  German  com- 
mimities,  notably  Munich,  have  rebelled  against  the 
offensiveness  of  recent  German  film  productions  and 
installed  a  censorship.  In  Berlin  there  is  one 
moving-picture  theater  which  seats  5,000  people.  In 
nine  weeks  last  winter  it  made  a  net  profit  of  400,000 
marks.  There  are  325  moving-picture  theaters  in 
Berlin,  and  the  cost  of  tickets  is  from  a  little  over 
2  marks  to  a  little  over  8  marks  per  seat.  Yet  they 
are  crowded  afternoon  and  evening.  There  are  over 
fifty  regular  theaters  in  Berhn,  and  they,  too,  don't 
know  what  it  is  not  to  be  doing  a  capacity  business. 
The  stock  market  is  another  place  where  the 
Berliners  have  a  delightful  time  tossing  away  their 
money.  There  is  far  more  stock-market  speculation 
than  there  was  during  the  war,  and  it's  nothing  at 
all  but  speculation.  That  is  clearly  shown  by  the 
prices  of  American  railway  shares,  in  which  there  is 
heavy  dealing.  The  day  before  I  left  Berlin  last 
winter  Baltimore  &  Ohio  shares  were  quoted  at  270 
marks  per  share,  which  at  that  time  was  equivalent 
to  about  $5.50.     Yet  B.  &  O.  on  the   New  York 

386 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

Stock  Exchange  was  selling  around  $68.  Canadian 
Pacific  on  the  same  day  was  quoted  at  i,ooo  marks, 
an  equivalent  of  $20,  but  in  New  York,  Canadian 
Pacific  was  around  $154.  The  reason  for  this 
strange  difference  in  price  is  that  the  German-owned 
shares  in  these  railroads  have  drawn  no  dividends 
and  may  not  draw  any.  They  are  sort  of  outlaw 
shares  which  may  and  may  not  be  of  value  some  day. 
All  dealing  in  them  is  pure  speculation.  The  most 
active  stock  on  the  Berlin  stock  exchange  last  winter 
was  Shantung  Railway  Preferred.  On  December 
29th  it  leaped  up  300  points  to  a  price  of  3,600 
marks.  It  slides  up  and  down  from  300  to  400 
marks  a  day.     That  also  is  pure  speculation. 

Most  of  the  gay  and  care-free  spending  on  the 
part  of  Germans  with  money  is  caused  by  their 
disinclination  to  have  the  money  wrenched  from 
them  by  the  German  tax  on  capital,  which  is  very 
heavy.  A  somewhat  decayed  specimen  of  German 
aristocracy,  who  had  made  several  fruitless  attempts 
to  get  out  of  the  country  with  the  remains  of  his 
fortune,  appeared  one  day  in  the  Adlon  Hotel  in 
Berlin  dressed  up  like  a  Christmas  tree.  The 
gorgeousness  of  his  appearance  caused  some  com- 
ment in  the  bar.  He  assured  the  commentors  that 
the  clothes  which  he  was  wearing  weren't  a  cir- 
cumstance to  the  ones  which  he  had  at  home.  "The 
government  thinks  they're  going  to  get  my  money," 
said  he,  "but  they  aren't.  I've  bought  twelve  suits 
of  clothes  at  two  thousand  marks  a  suit,  and  eight 
pairs  of  shoes  at  one  thousand  marks  a  pair,  and 
more  neckties  and  shirts  and  other  wearing  apparel 
than  I've  ever  had  before  in  all  my  life.     I  shall  buy 

387 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

still  more,  and  I  shall  buy  jewelry  and  the  finest 
wines  and  the  best  food  to  be  obtained,  and  when 
the  government  comes  around  to  collect  my  money 
from  me  I  shall  show  them  the  receipts  for  all 
my  purchases  and  they  won't  get  anything  at  all." 
Roaring  with  laughter  over  his  astuteness,  the  de- 
cayed specimen  ordered  another  quart  of  champagne 
and  proceeded  to  guzzle  it  with  keen  enjoyment. 

When  the  Germans  with  money  grow  weary  of 
spending  it  for  the  ordinary  run  of  articles  they  blow 
it  in  on  postage  stamps,  but  since  there  seem  to  be 
about  as  many  stamp  stores  in  Berlin  as  there  used 
to  be  saloons  in  Milwaukee,  I  gather  that  there  are  as 
many  German  stamp  collectors  as  there  were  Milwau- 
kee beer  drinkers.  On  most  of  the  business  streets 
every  fifth  shop  seems  to  deal  exclusively  in  postage 
stamps,  and  in  every  shop  there  are  usually  from 
two  to  five  people  engaged  in  gratifying  their  mad 
craving  for  stamp  collecting.  The  situation  is 
greatly  complicated  by  the  enormous  number  of  war 
stamps  which  have  been  issued  during  the  past  five 
years.  Whenever  the  army  of  any  country  occupied 
a  slice  of  another  country  it  got  out  a  special  set  of 
stamps.  Whenever  any  section  of  a  country  altered 
its  form  of  government  somebody  felt  called  on  to 
evolve  some  new  stamps  for  the  occasion.  Places 
that  never  got  more  than  a  three-line  mention  in  any 
American  newspaper  have  broken  out  with  postage 
stamps  that  are  considered  very  nifty  by  the  Ger- 
man stamp  hounds.  For  example,  there  is  Luboml. 
I  am  not  familiar  with  Luboml,  though  it  sounds 
interesting.  If  anybody  threw  Luboml  into  my  face 
at  a  moment's  notice  and  wanted  to  know  what  it 

388 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

was  I  would  make  a  quick  stab  and  say  that  it  was 
an  Austrian  mineral  water.  Nevertheless,  it  is  a 
place  that  has  issued  postage  stamps  during  the 
recent  unpleasantness,  as  also  are  Checiny  and  Sos- 
novice  and  Zarki  and  Przedborz.  Przedborz  has 
some  dandy  stamps  which  are  keenly  gone  in  for 
by  the  Germans.  Two  very  popular  Przedborz 
stamps  are  the  two  and  four-groszy  stamp,  which 
can  be  had  in  Berlin  for  thirty  marks.  I  do  not 
know  how  much  a  groszy  is,  though  I  suppose  that 
such  a  lack  of  knowledge  is  a  very  pitiful  thing. 
The  Ukraine  got  out  some  stamps,  as  did  the  West 
Ukrainian  People's  Republic,  or  Volksrepubhk.  Hun- 
gary had  her  troubles  with  an  issue  which  is  known 
to  the  German  collectors  as  the  Kriegswohltatig- 
keitsausgabe.  Then  came  the  Hungarian  Republic, 
and  after  that  the  Hungarian  Soviet  Republic. 
Austria  adds  her  bit  to  the  mess  by  getting  out  stamps 
for  the  Austrian  Field-post,  the  Austrian  Field-post 
in  Serbia,  the  Austrian  Field-post  in  Montenegro, 
the  Austrian  Field-post  in  Rumania,  the  Austrian 
Field-post  in  Italy,  and  the  Republic  of  German 
Austria.  Then  there  are  the  ItaUan  Besetzungs.  A 
Besetzimg,  as  I  understand  it,  is  a  sitting-down. 
There  were  the  ItaHan  sittings-down  in  Austria, 
Fiume,  and  Istria,  and  all  of  them  required  stamps. 
Some  day,  perchance,  Italy  will  get  out  some  stamps 
to  celebrate  her  sitting  down  on  D'Annunzio.  And 
then,  of  course,  there  were  the  German  sittings-down 
in  Belgium,  Lithuania,  Dorpat,  Russian  Poland, 
Rumania,  and  various  other  places.  Some  of  these 
stamps  come  high.  A  set  of  seventeen  of  the 
Italian   Besetzung   in  Austria  costs   2,000  marks. 

3S9 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

Forty-three  stamps  of  the  Italian  Besetzung  in 
Fiume  and  Istria  bring  1,500  marks.  A  complete 
set  of  Jugoslav  stamps  costs  450  marks.  A  set  of 
nineteen  Polish  Corps  stamps  costs  5,000  marks. 
A  set  issued  during  the  Rumanian  Besetzung  in 
Siebenburgen  brings  400  marks,  while  one  perfect 
gem,  issued  by  Turkey  and  known  to  German  col- 
lectors by  the  endearing  diminutive  Kriegswohl- 
tatigkeitsausgabe  mil  kleinem  sechszackigem  Stern  und 
Halbmond-Aufdruck,  sets  one  back  400  marks  for  the 
one  stamp.  But  the  Germans  pay  the  prices.  If 
they've  got  it,  they'll  spend  it  for  anything. 

There  is  another  side  to  the  picture,  however,  and 
a  very  much  larger  side.  As  in  most  countries,  the 
bulk  of  the  people  have  no  investments,  no  income 
from  investments,  and  no  savings.  They  are  getting 
along  on  salaries  or  on  what  they  earn  from  day  to 
day,  and  they  are  making  very  hard  going  of  it, 
for  the  prices  which  they  are  forced  to  pay  for  the 
necessities  of  life,  when  they  buy  them  in  the  open 
market,  are  enormous.  Their  problem  is  a  bad  one, 
though  not  as  terrible  as  it  is  in  Poland  and  in 
Austria. 

I  have  heard  people — Americans,  usually — speak  of 
prices  in  Germany  as  being  ridiculously  low  because 
of  the  large  number  of  German  marks  that  can  be 
purchased  for  a  dollar.  This,  of  course,  is  unfair, 
because  the  Germans  are  paid  in  marks,  and  the 
mark,  to  them,  is  still  equivalent  to  24  cents,  though 
it  is  equivalent  only  to  2  cents  to  an  American. 
When  I  was  in  Berlin  I  received  47  German  marks 
for  each  one  of  my  American  dollars.  My  room  in 
the  best  hotel  in  Beriin — one  of  the  best  hotels,  by 

390 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

the  way,  in  Europe — cost  less  than  a  dollar  a  day. 
At  a  little  restaurant  which  is  frequented  by  the 
American  newspaper  men  I  could  get  a  satisfying 
repast  of  soup,  goose  liver,  potatoes,  beer,  bread, 
butter,  coffee,  and  cheese  for  about  60  cents.  I 
could  buy  a  suit  of  clothes  for  $25  or  $30.  But  all 
these  things  were  very  different  propositions  for  the 
average  German.  Ten  thousand  marks  a  year  is  a 
pretty  fair  salary  in  Berlin.  A  German  who  earned 
that  salary  would  have  to  pay  out  two  months' 
earnings  if  he  wanted  a  good  suit  of  clothes.  Let's 
suppose  that  $3,000  a  year  is  a  fair  average  of 
earnings  in  America.  If  a  man  earning  $3,000  a  year 
in  America  had  to  pay  $500  for  a  suit  of  clothes  he'd 
be  in  about  the  same  position  that  the  average  Ger- 
man is  in  to-day.  He  would  also  be  in  a  state  of 
turmoil  that  would  make  all  previous  turmoils  look 
like  a  Dorcas  Society  meeting.  He  would  be  very 
apt  to  rush  out  on  the  street  with  ferocious  cries, 
tear  up  the  cobblestones,  and  throw  them  through 
the  nearest  plate-glass  window.  Why  the  Germans 
don't  do  it  I  don't  know.  Some  people  say  it's 
because  they're  a  beaten  people,  and  therefore  sunk 
in  a  sort  of  despair  that  numbs  them.  Others  say 
it's  because  law  and  order  have  been  so  ingrained  in 
them  for  such  a  long  time  that  they  are  incapable 
of  erupting.  Whatever  the  reason,  they  show  few 
signs  of  kicking  over  the  traces.  One  sees  the  out- 
ward manifestations  of  fear  of  an  outbreak  in  the 
barbed-wire  entanglements  which  are  placed  at  the 
entrances  of  public  buildings,  ready  to  be  strung 
into  place  by  the  armed  guards  at  a  moment's 
notice.     But  outbursts  on  the  part  of  the  people 

391 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

are  rare.  The  Germans  are  not  good  rioters.  They 
have  occasional  demonstrations,  but  they  usually 
do  their  demonstrating  in  an  orderly  manner.  If 
the  demonstration  shows  signs  of  cutting  into  their 
dinner  hour,  they  cut  out  the  demonstration  and  go 
home  to  eat.  They  also  do  not  care  to  demonstrate 
in  the  rain.  It's  "home,  James"  for  any  German 
mob  if  the  weather  becomes  inclement.  A  large 
mob  of  Germans  were  rioting  about  something  in 
Berlin  early  in  the  winter.  The  riot  consisted  of 
standing  on  the  broad  walks  of  a  park  and  shouting 
"Hoch! "  or  ''Raus! "  or  something  similar,  at  regular 
intervals.  But  they  were  very  careful  to  keep  off 
the  grass.  In  the  middle  of  the  riot  a  small  boy 
broke  away  from  the  mob  and  ran  across  the  grass. 
Every  head  in  the  mob  turned  toward  him,  and  a 
score  of  angry  voices  shouted  to  him  to  get  back 
on  the  walk  where  he  belonged.  A  few  days  before 
I  left  Berlin  thirty  thousand  workers  marched 
through  the  streets  in  protest  against  the  meagemess 
of  their  salaries.  They  marched  without  a  sound, 
except  for  the  scuffling  of  their  heavy  feet  on  the 
snowy  pavements.  Not  a  word,  not  a  shout,  merely 
a  dull  and  silent  protest.  The  Bolshevik  menace, 
though  widely  press-agented  in  the  vicinity  of  Ber- 
lin, seems  to  be  somewhat  exaggerated. 

The  great  Spartacist  uprising  of  a  year  ago  could 
have  been  handily  squelched  by  two  hundred  New 
York  policemen,  and  if  the  bullets  could  be  elimi- 
nated, a  life-size  reproduction  of  the  entire  uprising 
could  be  presented  in  the  Harvard  Stadium.  There 
may  be  and  probably  will  be  a  few  Spartacist  or 
Communist  outbreaks  during  the  winter — "Spar- 

392 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

tacism"  and  "Communism"  being  another  way  of 
saying  "Bolshevism" — but  if  there  are  any,  it  is  a 
good  bet  that  they  won't  grow  to  such  proportions 
that  they  couldn't  be  produced  on  the  stage  of  the 
New  York  Hippodrome. 

As  in  all  countries  at  the  present  time,  the  man 
who  is  having  the  hardest  sledding  is  the  clerk  and 
the  small  government  official.  His  salary  hovers 
between  s,ooo  and  7,000  marks  a  year,  unless  he  is 
an  unmarried  man  from  eighteen  to  twenty-two 
years  of  age,  in  which  case  he  receives  from  3,500 
to  4,200  marks  a  year. 

Now,  I  talked  with  a  great  many  people  in  Berlin 
in  an  effort  to  find  out  on  how  small  an  amount  of 
money  a  man  could  live.  Practically  everyone 
whom  I  asked  said  that  nobody  could  live  with  a 
semblance  of  decency  on  less  than  8,000  marks  a 
year.  A  few  put  7,000  marks  per  year  as  the 
absolute  minimum.  All  of  them  agreed  that  they 
couldn't  see  how  it  was  possible  to  live  on  6,000 
marks  a  year.  Yet  there  are  many  people  in  Berlin 
and  other  German  cities  who  are  doing  so.  How 
they  do  it  nobody  knows,  least  of  all  the  people 
themselves.  They  live  entirely  on  their  government 
rations,  buy  the  cheapest  sort  of  clothes,  and  exist 
somehow.  I  was  talking  one  day  with  the  Berlin 
manager  of  a  big  steamship  office,  which  sells  noth- 
ing nowadays  except  railroad  tickets.  He  began  to 
talk,  as  everybody  in  Central  Europe  always  does, 
of  the  frightful  living  costs.  "I  used  to  buy  my 
collars  for  eight  marks  a  dozen,"  said  he,  "and  now 
they're  ten  marks  apiece.  A  pair  of  shoes  used  to 
cost   eighteen   marks,    and   now    they    cost    three 

393 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

hundred.  An  apartment  that  used  to  cost  eighty 
marks  a  month  now  costs  three  hundred  and  fifty." 
He  sighed  despondently.  "The  people  are  living  on 
what  they  had  before  the  war,"  he  continued. 
"Otherwise  they  couldn't  live.  After  they've  used 
up  everything,  God  knows  what  will  happen  to 
them." 

I  spoke  with  a  government  official  who  occupies  a 
responsible  position.  His  family  consists  of  his  wife 
and  four  children,  one  of  whom  is  away  at  school. 
His  salary  is  i,ooo  marks  a  month.  He  has  given 
up  his  home  and  fives  in  two  rooms  in  a  boarding 
house.  The  two  rooms  and  the  meals  cost  no 
marks  a  day.  Anybody  with  a  comprehensive 
knowledge  of  higher  mathematics  can  see  from  this 
that  his  bill  for  one  year  at  the  boarding  house  would 
be  40,150  marks,  which  doesn't  leave  much  out  of 
his  12,000-mark  salary  to  spend  on  clothes,  shoes, 
street-car  fares,  amusements,  charity,  and  sundries. 
He  has  a  private  income,  however,  and  so  he  gets 
along. 

If  a  woman  wanted  a  single  room  and  board  in  a 
fairly  good  part  of  Berfin  she  would  find  it  very 
difficult  to  get  it  at  a  smaller  rate  than  20  marks  a 
day.  That  figures  out  to  7,300  marks  a  year  for  the 
room  and  food  alone.  That  is  one  of  the  reasons 
why  the  streets  of  Berlin  are  full  of  unfortunate 
women  and  why  the  dance  halls  and  cabarets  are 
crowded  with  them  nightly.  Here,  for  example,  is 
a  typical  case :  a  young  German  woman  was  married 
to  a  Heutenant  in  the  German  army.  He  was  killed, 
leaving  her  with  two  small  children.  She  draws  a 
government  pension  of  150  marks  a  month.    She 

394 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

has  a  position  as  typist,  which  pays  her  300  marks 
a  month.  She  has  sent  her  children  to  relatives  and 
she  is  engaged  to  be  married  to  one  of  her  husband's 
brother  officers.  But  she  must  either  go  on  the 
street  or  starve.  Our  government  investigators  in 
Berlin  state  that  there  are  between  20,000  and 
30,000  war  widows  in  Berlin  alone  who  are  in  the 
same  position. 

An  American  in  Berlin  went  out  to  Pottsdam  to 
take  dinner  with  a  retired  German  officer  who  had 
been  wealthy  before  the  war.  He  lived  in  a  beauti- 
ful home,  magnificently  furnished.  "We  don't  often 
ask  our  friends  to  dinner,"  said  the  old  officer,  "be- 
cause we  don't  like  to  have  people  see  the  extremities 
to  which  we  have  been  reduced.  We  have  only 
asked  you  because  you  could  give  us  news  of  our 
friends."  He  made  no  further  apologies.  When 
dinner  was  served  it  consisted  of  a  plate  of  hash 
and  a  bottle  of  rare  old  wine — nothing  more. 

Two  days  later  the  same  American  went  to  the 
home  of  a  Schieber  for  dinner.  The  Schieber  met 
him  at  the  train  with  an  expensive  automobile. 
His  home  was  full  of  servants.  The  table  groaned, 
as  the  saying  goes,  beneath  meats,  asparagus,  fruits, 
rich  desserts,  and  fine  wines.  The  Schieber  was 
proud  of  his  luxurious  surroundings.  "I  want  you 
to  smoke  a  cigar  that  cost  eighty-six  marks,"  said 
he  to  his  guest.  "You  must  have  some  more  of  this 
Tokayer;  it  was  laid  down  in  eighteen  forty-six  and 
it  is  the  best  in  Berlin."  Food  troubles  don't  exist 
for  the  Schiebers,  and  the  government  is  too  weak 
to  enforce  its  own  food  laws. 

The  German  laborer  is  fairly  well  off.  The  un- 
20  395 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

skilled  laborer  earns  from  i6  to  40  marks  daily. 
An  engine  driver  receives  180  marks  a  week,  so 
that  his  year's  work  nets  him  slightly  over  9,000 
marks.  Laborers  live  in  the  east  end  of  Berlin  and 
are  able  to  get  a  two  or  three-room  apartment  for 
500  or  600  marks  a  year.  The  clerks,  who  refuse  to 
live  in  the  east  end,  have  to  pay  double  and  even 
triple  that  amount. 

Everybody  in  Germany  who  makes  an  attempt  to 
live  on  the  government  rations  guards  his  food 
cards  as  though  they  were  precious  jewels.  There 
are  cards  for  meat,  cards  for  potatoes,  cards  for 
sugar,  cards  for  coal,  cards  for  butter,  and  cards  for 
bread.  A  meat  card  permits  its  possessor  to  buy 
half  a  pound  of  meat  a  week  at  the  government 
prices,  and  half  a  pound  of  meat  a  week  is  just  little 
more  than  enough  to  provide  a  goldfish  with  adequate 
nourishment.  The  butter  which  a  butter  card  allows 
one  to  buy  every  week  will  just  about  butter  one 
slice  of  bread.  The  coal  cards  and  sugar  cards  are 
all  right  in  theory,  but  in  practice  they  frequently 
fall  down  with  a  dull  thud  because  there  is  no 
sugar  or  coal  to  be  had  on  them.  The  Schiebers 
and  the  war  profiteers  are  getting  all  of  it.  With 
the  help  of  butter  cards  one  can  get  a  pound  of 
butter  for  7  marks,  but  without  the  cards  one  must 
pay  32  marks  for  the  same  amount.  Theoretically, 
there  is  no  butter  except  at  the  government-regulated 
price.  Actually  there  is  all  of  it  that  one  wants. 
On  bread  cards  a  person  can  get  a  loaf  of  bread  for 
a  trifle  over  i>^  marks;  without  cards  a  loaf  of  bread 
costs  sH  marks. 

There  was  so  much  stealing  of  bread  cards  and 
396 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

counterfeiting  of  them  that  the  government  issued 
cards  of  various  colors  and  placed  a  password,  such 
as  "Steamboat"  or  "Tomato  soup"  or  "Shake- 
speare" or  "Overcoat,"  on  each  one.  At  the  end 
of  each  week  the  government  publishes  the  color 
and  the  password  of  the  card  for  the  following  week. 
If  any  sort  of  card  has  been  counterfeited  or  stolen 
in  large  numbers,  that  particular  sort  can  be  with- 
drawn from  circulation  without  difficulty.  If  a 
man  isn't  satisfied  with  his  half  pound  of  meat  a 
week  at  2  j^  marks,  he  can  easily  go  out  and  buy  more, 
but  it  will  cost  him  15  marks  a  pound.  He  cheats 
when  he  buys  it,  and  the  man  who  sells  it  to  him 
cheats,  and  the  government  cheats  in  permitting 
it  to  be  done.  I  never  carried  a  food  card  of  any  sort 
with  me  during  my  stay  in  Berlin,  but  after  I  had 
learned  how  to  wink  at  the  waiter  I  would  get  what- 
ever I  wanted.  Yet  I  was  supposed  to  have  cards  in 
order  to  get  nearly  all  the  things  I  ate. 

Food  can  be  distributed  to  the  people  in  very 
much  larger  quantities  and  at  far  lower  prices  than 
the  present  unregulated  prices,  for  all  the  food  deal- 
ers were  making  money  almost  as  easily  as  the  gov- 
ernment makes  it  on  its  printing  presses.  For  ex- 
ample, a  Berliner  borrowed  50,000  marks  on  which 
to  start  a  restaurant.  Practically  all  his  food  was 
bought  illegally — "under  the  hand,"  they  say  in 
Berlin.  In  four  months  he  repaid  the  man  who 
loaned  him  the  money  and  had  enough  left  to  enlarge 
his  restaurant. 

So  much  money  is  being  printed  in  Germany  that 
one  rarely  sees  a  bill  of  high  denomination  that  is  not 
brand  new.     What  becomes  of  all  the  old  money  I 

3(^7 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

couldn't  find  out.  It  is  being  shipped  out  of  the 
country  in  large  quantities  so  that  it  won't  be  taken 
by  the  government,  but  not  all  of  the  old  money 
can  have  participated  in  this  flight  of  capital. 
At  any  rate,  one  doesn't  see  it.  But  the  nice  new 
fifty-mark  bills  are  everywhere.  They  are  piled  up 
in  the  banks  like  cordwood,  fresh  every  day.  There 
isn't  a  wrinkle  or  a  smudge  on  them,  and  they  are 
as  sticky  and  as  odorous  of  printer's  ink  as  though 
they  were  less  than  half  an  hour  off  the  presses. 

Every  city  in  Germany  took  a  hand  at  printing  its 
own  money  during  the  war.  All  of  the  leading  ar- 
tists assisted  in  the  money-making  orgy,  so  that 
some  very  attractive  specimens  were  produced.  All 
of  the  cities  have  legends  connected  with  them,  such 
as  the  legend  of  Gilda  von  Googleburg,  who  haunts 
Googleburg  Castle,  or  the  Pied  Piper  of  Hamelin, 
or  the  Terrible  Hans  von  Stein  of  Steinfels.  These 
legends  were  frequently  depicted  on  the  war  money 
of  the  different  cities,  so  that,  although  the  money 
is  no  good  at  all  as  money,  it  makes  nice  pictures 
to  paste  up  in  the  nursery  for  the  purpose  of  amusing 
as  well  as  instructing  the  little  ones. 

One  who  enters  Germany  by  way  of  Treves  and 
Coblentz,  let  us  say,  gets  out  at  the  various  stations 
and  buys  food  or  postcards.  At  Treves  the  innocent- 
faced  Fraulein  behind  the  counter,  observing  that  he 
is  one  of  those  boobish  outlanders,  hands  him  a  fistful 
of  money  which  the  helpless  outlander  tries  in  vain 
to  count.  If  he  has  started  with  a  dollar  in  American 
money  and  has  bought  enough  postcards  and  stamps 
to  apprise  his  friends  in  Philadelphia,  Boston, 
Kennebunkport,  Indianapolis,  Carmel  (California), 

398 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

and  Glen  Ridge  (New  Jersey)  that  he  is  still  stagger- 
ing weakly  on  his  way,  he  gets  back  the  equivalent 
of  ninety-two  cents  in  American  money,  or  about 
forty-two  marks.  About  half  of  the  forty-two  marks 
which  the  innocent-faced  Fraulein  hands  out  will 
be  in  regular  German  money  and  the  other  half 
will  be  in  the  phony,  or  near,  money  which  the  city 
of  Treves  issued  just  to  show  that  it  could  make 
money  as  well  as  anyone  else.  There  will  be  enough 
of  it  to  fill  two  pockets,  and  it  will  all  look  alike  to 
the  boobish  outlander.  When  he  gets  to  Coblentz, 
however,  and  attempts  to  give  a  cab  driver  some  of 
the  money  which  he  accumulated  in  Treves  the  cab 
driver  at  once  throws  a  harrowing  and  convulsive 
fit.  The  Treves  money  is  worth  nothing  except  in 
Treves.  One  must,  therefore,  pay  the  cabman  in 
good  German  money,  and  after  one  has  done  so  one 
receives  about  two  quires  of  money  in  exchange. 
Half  of  this  will  be  good  and  the  other  half  will  be 
money  issued  by  the  city  of  Coblentz  for  reasons 
best  known  to  itself.  When  one  has  passed  on 
from  Coblentz  to  Cologne  one  unsuspiciously  at- 
tempts to  get  rid  of  the  Coblentz  money,  only  to  find 
that  Coblentz  money  is  about  as  highly  esteemed  in 
Cologne  as  a  nice  case  of  typhus  fever  would  be. 
As  a  result  of  all  this  the  progress  of  a  newcomer  in 
Germany  bears  a  vague  resemblance  to  a  hare-and- 
hound  chase,  for  as  he  proceeds  from  city  to  city 
he  is  forced  to  throw  away  the  phony  money 
which  he  has  unwittingly  acquired  and  which  is 
causing  his  pockets  to  bulge  like  the  stuffed  owl  of 
song  and  fable. 

In  Germany,  as  in  all  other  parts  of  Europe,  one 
399 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

has  almost  as  much  trouble  in  locating  a  place  to 
sleep  as  he  would  have  in  locating  a  pair  of  ear  muffs 
in  Borneo.  There  is  the  shortage  of  buildings 
caused  by  the  lack  of  construction  during  the  years 
of  war.  In  the  good  residential  section  of  BerUn, 
for  example,  5,000  buildings  were  erected  every  year. 
Since  there  has  been  no  building  for  five  years,  the 
west  end  of  Berlin  alone  lacks  25,000  buildings.  In 
addition  to  this,  refugees  from  various  places  have 
been  pouring  into  Germany  since  the  armistice. 
The  French  have  chased  the  Germans  out  of  Alsace, 
the  Poles  have  run  them  out  of  German  Poland,  and 
the  Ukrainians  have  ejected  them  from  south 
Russia.  Then  there  are  the  Germans  who  have 
been  sent  back  by  England  and  the  United  States, 
and  who  have  left  former  German  colonies,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  Russians  who  have  fled  from  the 
Bolsheviks  and  find  that  the  favorable  rate  of 
exchange  in  Germany  makes  it  possible  for  them  to 
settle  down  there  and  exist  on  their  capital  for  three 
or  four  years  before  they  finally  go  broke.  Owing 
to  the  fact  that  the  government  has  fixed  the  prices 
which  may  be  charged  for  houses  and  apartments, 
the  cost  of  them  remains  fairly  reasonable,  if  they 
can  be  found.  Usually,  however,  they  can't  be  found 
either  for  love  or  for  money.  Foreigners  wishing 
apartments  frequently  pay  a  bonus  which  amounts 
to  an  entire  year's  rent.  The  landlords  have  also 
learned  the  war-time  Washington  dodge  of  insisting 
that  a  tenant  buy  the  furniture  in  order  to  get  the 
apartment.  They  charge  nominal  prices  for  rentals, 
but  when  it  comes  to  selling  the  furniture  they  charge 
a  matter  of  40,000  marks  for  articles  which  couldn't 

400 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

be  worth  more  than  5,000  marks  at  a  liberal  estimate. 
Travelers  can  usually  be  squeezed  in  at  a  good  hotel 
if  they  adopt  the  startlingly  original  system  of  allow- 
ing the  room  clerk  to  catch  a  fleeting  glimpse  of 
200  or  300  marks  artfully  disposed  in  the  palm  of  the 
hand  in  such  manner  that  the  figures  can  be  plainly 
seen.  In  fact,  travelers  can  get  almost  anything 
they  want  in  Germany  if  they  are  willing  to  hand 
out  money.  There  is  always  a  hand  stretched  out 
to  take  it. 

In  most  of  the  German  cities  one  goes  around  and 
bribes  at  will,  but  in  the  occupied  area  along  the 
Rhine  one  keeps  his  money  and  allows  the  military 
authorities  to  work  their  will  on  him.  The  occupied 
area  is  known  to  the  Germans  as  "the  Hole  in  the 
West."  Through  the  Hole  in  the  West  come  con- 
traband goods  on  which  the  Germans  can  collect 
no  duty,  and  through  it  go  out  German  money  and 
art  treasures  and  commodities  which  are  needed  at 
home.  Consequently,  Cologne,  for  example,  which  is 
the  vortex  of  the  hole,  is  crammed  with  traders 
of  every  nationality,  as  well  as  with  the  British 
army.  In  order  to  get  sleeping  accommodations  one 
must  go  to  the  billeting  office  and  take  whatever  is 
handed  out.  I  drifted  into  the  billeting  office  of 
Cologne  around  midnight  on  a  cold  December 
evening,  and  one  of  the  officials  took  me  to  his  home 
and  soaked  me  the  exorbitant  sum  of  fifteen  marks 
for  a  night's  lodging  and  breakfast  the  next  morn- 
ing— ^fifteen  marks  representing  about  thirty  cents 
at  the  then  rate  of  exchange.  Before  inserting  my- 
self between  the  two  feather  mattresses  which  rep- 
resent the  German  idea  of  the  height  of  comfort, 

40 1 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

I  sat  with  my  host  and  his  wife  and  daughter  for 
about  an  hour  and  received  a  commodious  earful 
regarding  the  German  plans  for  the  total  wrecking 
of  France  in  the  not  distant  future.  This  was  the 
first  I  had  heard  of  it,  and  it  intrigued  me  greatly. 
It  was  not  the  last  I  heard  of  it,  however.  Wherever 
I  went  in  Germany  the  Germans  assured  me  that 
the  day  was  coming  when  France  would  be  beaten  to 
a  creamy  consistency  and  poured  out  of  the  kitchen 
window.  Germany  may  be  whipped,  and  she  may 
realize  it  to  the  full,  as  some  people  claim,  but, 
taking  the  German  people  by  and  large,  they  are 
quite  unaware  of  being  in  any  position  which  will 
make  it  impossible  for  them  to  knock  the  stuffing 
out  of  France  with  one  hand  tied  behind  their 
backs  as  soon  as  they  consider  that  the  time  is 
opportune.  I  asked  my  host  in  Cologne — as  I 
asked  all  the  other  people  with  whom  I  discussed 
the  matter — when  he  thought  France  would  be  ripe 
to  knock  off  the  tree,  so  to  speak.  He  made  the  same 
reply  that  all  the  others  made.  "When  England 
and  American  stand  not  by  France,"  said  he,  "then 
we  will  fight  again."  And  then  he  leered  at  me  and 
clenched  his  fist  and  went  through  the  motions  of 
delivering  a  corkscrew  punch,  significant,  I  assume, 
of  the  mulelike  wallop  which  France  is  to  receive. 

I  wish  that  the  people  who  think  that  the  last  war 
has  been  fought,  and  who  are  therefore  averse  to 
preparedness  and  universal  mihtary  training,  could 
wander  through  Central  Europe  for  a  few  weeks. 
Everybody  is  spoiling  for  a  fight.  Boundaries  are  ^ 
vague.  All  the  nations  want  something  that  they 
haven't  got.     The  people  are  hungry  and  cold  and 

402 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

desperate.  The  situation  of  constant  ferment  which 
formerly  existed  in  the  Balkans  has,  with  the  creation 
of  new,  small  states,  spread  throughout  Central 
Europe,  The  attitude  of  each  nation  seems  to  be 
that  of  a  small  boy  who  has  been  prevented  from 
beating  up  an  enemy  by  a  number  of  the  enemy's 
friends.  "You  wait  'til  I  get  you  alone,"  he  says. 
"You  just  wait  'til  I  get  you  alone!"  They're  wait- 
ing, in  Central  Europe,  to  get  each  other  alone. 
Each  nation  fairly  burns  to  entice  another  nation 
up  an  alley  and  beat  it  to  a  pulp. 

France  seems  to  be  the  only  nation  against  which 
the  Germans  bear  any  ill  will.  So  far  as  America 
and  England  are  concerned,  she  has  already  forgiven 
and  forgotten  practically  all  things — though  both 
nations,  the  Germans' recall,  wronged  and  harmed  her 
severely.  Almost  all  the  German  business  men  and 
officials  with  whom  I  talked  found  the  opportunity 
to  ask  me  why  there  still  existed  in  America  such  a 
strong  dislike  for  Germans.  I  told  all  of  them  that 
much  of  our  distrust  arose  from  the  discovery  on  the 
part  of  Americans  that  Germans  could  neither  be 
trusted  nor  believed  during  the  war,  and  that  nothing 
sticks  so  tenaciously  as  a  reputation  for  dishonesty. 
I  also  made  some  reference  to  their  methods  of 
making  war,  as  well  as  to  the  frequent  assurances 
which  came  out  of  Germany  from  responsible 
officials  that  America  was  to  be  made  to  bear  the 
entire  cost  of  the  war  so  far  as  Germany  was  con- 
cerned. In  each  case  I  was  assured  that  all  of  the 
stories  of  German  atrocities  were  due  to  British 
propaganda,  and  that  the  war  was  started  by 
Russia.     When  I  ventured  to  give  them  the  dip- 

40a 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

lomatic,  though  unmistakable,  raz,  I  was  reminded 
that  the  war  was  over,  anyway,  and  that  it  was 
inhuman  of  America  not  to  let  bygones  be  bygones. 
My  answer  to  that  was  that  they  had  asked  me  why 
Germany  was  distrusted  in  America,  that  I  had 
answered  them  as  inoffensively  as  possible,  and  that 
any  argument  concerning  the  unsoundness  of  Amer- 
ican opinion  was  not  passionately  craved  by  any 
American  at  the  present  juncture. 

Once  in  a  while  one  of  the  old-line  Prussians  gets 
to  brooding  over  the  situation  and  erupts  against 
an  American.  It  happened  to  a  couple  of  friends  of 
mine  while  I  was  in  Berlin.  One,  a  former  major  in 
the  American  army,  was  riding  in  a  street  car  and 
conversing  with  a  friend  in  English,  when  a  Prussian 
tapped  him  on  the  shoulder  and  growled,  "If  you 
have  got  to  talk,  talk  German."  The  American 
was  held  down  by  his  friend  and  bloodshed  was 
averted.  The  other,  an  American  newspaper  man, 
was  quietly  talking  to  a  friend  in  the  lobby  of  the 
Adlon  when  another  Prussian  stepped  up  to  him  and 
informed  him  that  he  was  in  Germany  and  needn't 
speak  English.  After  the  newspaper  man  had  re- 
covered from  the  shock,  he  assured  the  Prussian  in 
sonorous  phrases  and  well-rounded  periods,  that  if 
it  pleased  him  to  speak  in  Chinese,  Hindu,  or  Arabic 
he  would  so  speak,  and  that  any  Prussian  who  sought 
to  make  him  speak  otherwise  would  wake  up  out 
on  the  sidewalk  with  his  nose  pushed  around  into 
his  right  ear  or  thereabouts. 

These  incidents,  however,  are  freaks.  Americans 
in  all  parts  of  Germany  receive  nothing  but  the  rnost 
courteous  treatment  and  the  kindest  consideration. 

404 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

True,  the  German  shopkeepers  see  them  coming 
miles  away  and  raise  all  prices  for  their  benefit, 
but  they  can  scarcely  be  blamed  for  so  doing,  even 
though  a  clause  in  the  Peace  Treaty  stipulates  that 
no  nation  is  to  be  discriminated  against.  All  shops 
add  25  per  cent  to  the  marked  price  when  selling  to 
foreigners  whose  currency  has  not  depreciated. 
Some  stores  add  much  more,  and  do  it  brazenly. 
The  largest  department  store  in  Berlin  raises  its 
prices  125  per  cent  to  Americans.  The  hotels,  also, 
were  last  winter  attempting  to  agree  on  a  scale  of 
excess  charges  to  be  levied  on  the  citizens  of  the 
countries  which  are  profiting  by  the  low  commercial 
value  of  the  mark. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  wild  talk  recently 
about  the  size  of  the  German  army.  Such  figures 
as  1,500,000  have  been  tossed  about  freely,  and  the 
intimation  has  been  that  Germany  has  that  number 
of  men  ready  to  spring,  fully  armed  and  equipped,  at 
the  solar  plexus  of  any  enemy.  This  belongs  to  that 
class  of  conversation  loosely  designated  as  hot  air 
or  bunk.  There  is  a  considerable  amount  of  evi- 
dence which  tends  to  show  that  there  are  organiza- 
tions of  officers  in  Germany  who  would  act  as  the 
nucleus  of  a  very  large  force  of  men,  but  as  far  as 
effective  fighting  forces  go,  Germany  is  not,  as  one 
might  say,  there.  In  fact,  she  is  very  far  from  there. 
Reliable  sources  of  information  indicate  that  Ger- 
many could  mobilize  an  army  of  400,000  men,  with 
such  arms  of  the  service  as  infantry  and  artillery 
in  pretty  good  shape.  All  auxiliary  arms,  however, 
are  in  poor  shape.  The  air  service  and  the  signal 
service  are  out  of  training.     Specialists,   such  as 

40s 


EUROPE'S   MORNING  AFTER 

bombers  and  mine  throwers,  have  had  no  instruction. 
The  motor  transport  service  is  very  bad.  These 
points  are  very  important  ones,  for  if  there  is  a  lack 
of  instruction  for  speciaHsts  and  if  the  auxiHary 
arms  are  weak,  an  army  may  be  technically  referred 
to,  in  military  parlance,  as  on  the  fritz.  In  addition 
to  all  this,  the  entire  German  railroad  service  is  bad. 
It  is  not  only  bad;  it  is  superbad.  If  I  had  not  seen 
the  railways  of  Poland  I  would  say  that  the  German 
railroad  service  was  bad  enough  to  be  classed  as 
entirely  decayed  or  rotten.  At  any  rate,  it  is  very, 
very  bad.  It  is  bad  as  to  equipment  and  bad  as  to 
personnel.  And  if  a  nation  wishes  to  mobilize  its 
army  it  won't  get  very  far  with  that  sort  of  railway 
service.  If  the  railway  succeeded  in  bearing  up 
under  the  strain  of  mobilizing  the  army — which  it 
wouldn't — it  would  never  have  enough  punch  left 
to  put  the  army's  supplies  in  place.  And  Germany 
hasn't  a  sufficient  amount  of  supplies  to  create 
reserves.  If  by  any  chance  she  did  succeed  in  creat- 
ing reserves,  the  population  of  the  nation  would  go 
back  on  the  government,  for  to  get  the  reserves  she 
would  have  to  take  the  supplies  from  the  people, 
and  if  she  did  that  the  people  would  have  nothing 
at  all  in  the  line  of  food.  If  by  hook  or  crook 
Germany  should  succeed  in  achieving  a  military 
victory  anywhere  at  the  present  time  it  would  be 
the  emptiest  thing  imaginable,  for  it  would  leave 
her  economically  helpless.  The  one  thing  that 
Germany  wants  and  must  have  in  order  to  achieve 
a  victory  later  on  is  to  get  on  her  feet  again.  She 
doesn't  intend  to  do  any  fighting — unless  Poland 
should  collapse — for  at  least  fifteen  years;   and  the 

406 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

people  who  rave  about  the  German  army  of  1,500,000 
men  are  at  Hberty  to  put  that  in  their  pipes  and 
apply  a  match  to  it. 

Traveling  in  Germany  is  anything  but  pleasant. 
The  British  military  authorities  run  a  train  from 
Cologne  to  Berlin,  and  if  one  puts  on  a  uniform  and 
goes  around  to  various  military  missions  with  docu- 
ments to  prove  that  the  heart  of  the  world  will 
probably  be  broken  unless  he  is  allowed  to  ride  on 
that  train,  he  has  a  fair  chance  of  getting  a  com- 
fortable berth  in  a  comfortable  sleeper.  But  all 
other  trains  are  a  snare  and  a  delusion.  German 
time-tables  during  the  past  winter  were  based 
largely  on  rumors;  and  trains  were  due  to  arrive 
at  their  destinations  when  they  got  there,  and  not 
before.  The  coaches  were  not  the  absolute  height 
of  luxury,  as  many  of  them  lacked  windows  and  a 
large  part  of  them  had  leal^  roofs,  while  their  heating 
systems,  in  frequent  instances,  seemed  to  be  suffering 
from  an  attack  of  arterio  sclerosis  and  were  function- 
ing in  a  very  evil  manner.  When  I  traveled  from 
Berlin  to  the  Polish  border  I  was  unable  to  find  any- 
one in  Beriin  who  could  tell  me  anything  at  all  about 
my  train,  except  concerning  the  hour  at  which  it 
started.  They  could  tell  me  lots  about  that,  the 
only  trouble  being  that  each  person  told  a  different 
story.  I  finally  took  the  word  of  the  Polish  Con- 
sulate. In  order  to  be  sure  of  a  seat  on  the  train 
I  drove  out  to  Charlottenburg,  which  is  the  suburb 
of  Berlin  where  the  train  makes  up.  When  the  train 
headed  in  toward  Berlin  there  was  only  one  other 
person  in  the  coach  with  me.  He  was  an  Austrian 
diplomatic  courier,  and  he  was  carrying  four  large 

407 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

gunny  sacks  filled  with  foodstuffs  in  addition  to  his 
regular  luggage.  When  he  had  succeeded  in  stuf- 
fing the  sacks  into  the  luggage  racks  there  was 
room  for  no  more  luggage  anywhere  except  on  the 
floor.  At  the  next  station  four  more  people  got  in 
with  large  quantities  of  luggage  and  sacks  of  food. 
Since  there  were  seven  seats  in  the  compartment 
there  was  room  for  only  one  more  person,  and 
scarcely  that,  because  of  the  manner  in  which  every 
available  inch  of  the  compartment  was  filled  with 
luggage.  At  the  Berlin  station  the  door  was  torn 
open  by  a  seething  mob  and  hoarse  voices  asked 
how  many  seats  there  were.  Everybody  in  the 
compartment  shouted  ''Ein!"  whereat  three  very 
large  people  hurled  themselves  among  us  with 
several  traveling  bags.  The  two  largest  ones  stood 
up  or  leaned  heavily  on  other  people's  knees  or 
sprawled  on  their  baggage  all  the  way  from  Berlin 
to  Bentschen — a  journey  of  seven  hours.  One  of 
them,  I  regret  to  say,  was  a  woman.  I  felt  no 
particular  urge  to  give  her  my  seat,  because  she  was 
twice  as  broad  as  I  am,  and  if  she  had  tried  to 
squeeze  herself  into  the  space  I  occupied  she  would 
have  smothered  the  person  beside  her.  Besides,  I 
was  holding  two  suitcases  which  didn't  belong  to  me 
on  my  lap,  and  if  she  had  sat  in  my  seat  she  would 
have  had  to  hold  the  suitcases,  and  since  she  didn't 
have  any  lap  to  speak  of  she  would  have  had  to 
hold  them  on  her  head,  which  would  have  been 
nothing  if  not  unpleasant.  Every  little  while  one 
of  the  travelers  would  get  out  a  bottle  of  wine  and 
a  sandwich  and  allay  his  hunger  pangs.  When  time 
hung  heavily  on  their  hands  they  would  take  things 

408 


SCHIEBER  LAND 

out  of  their  pockets  and  show  them  to  one  another. 
All  of  the  males  in  the  car  had  postage  stamps 
secreted  on  their  persons.  The  fattest  man  in  the 
compartment,  who  left  the  train  just  before  we 
reached  the  Polish  border,  with  the  evident  intention 
of  escaping  the  customs  authorities  by  walking  from 
Germany  into  Poland,  had  a  set  of  Russian  stamps 
with  a  Polish  superscription.  He  had  paid  3,000 
marks  for  them.  When  he  displayed  them  to  the 
assemblage  of  stamp  ferrets  they  were  greeted  with 
a  volley  of  "Achs!"  that  almost  blew  out  the  win- 
dows. Three  of  the  travelers  had  diplomatic  pass- 
ports about  the  size  of  a  blanket  for  a  baby's  crib, 
and  the  examination  of  them  by  the  other  travelers 
whiled  away  many  a  tedious  moment.  Traveling  has 
its  bright  spots,  even  in  Germany,  after  one  has  been 
through  it  and  come  out  safely,  but  that  is  also 
true  of  an  earthquake,  a  typhoon,  or  a  war.  If  I 
had  my  choice  between  enduring  an  earthquake  and 
standing  for  a  day  of  travel  on  a  German  train  I'd 
be  inclined  to  pick  the  earthquake. 

The  preliminaries  to  travel  in  Germany,  as  in  all 
other  countries,  are  as  painful  as  the  actual  traveling. 
To  go  to  Poland  one  must  go  to  the  Polish  Consulate 
and  spend  hours  in  getting  a  vise  for  his  passport, 
after  which  German  police  headquarters  must  be 
haunted  for  the  best  part  of  a  day  in  order  to  get 
the  German  permission  to  leave  the  country.  One 
must  fill  out  a  long  pedigree  which  tells  everything 
except  the  size  of  his  hat  and  the  way  he  likes  his 
lamb  chops  cooked.  With  this  he  must  march  up- 
stairs and  downstairs  and  along  interminable  cor- 
ridors, interviewing  gruff,  pipe-smoking   Prussians 

409 


EUROPE'S  MORNING  AFTER 

who  spend  most  of  their  time  hunting  for  misplaced 
commas  and  blurred  letters  in  the  passport,  so  that 
they  can  declare  the  whole  business  illegal.  To  go 
through  this  ordeal  without  the  aid  of  an  interpreter 
is  one  of  the  most  nerve-racking  experiences  in  the 
world.  All  of  the  lineal  descendants  of  Oscar  D. 
Bonehead,  founder  of  the  great  Bonehead  family, 
appear  to  have  been  gathered  together  in  the 
foreign  passport  offices,  and  their  family  traits  crop 
out  so  frequently  that  it  is  with  the  utmost  difficulty 
that  one  restrains  himself  from  permitting  his  loaded 
walking  stick  to  drop  on  their  heads  with  a  resonant 
and  hollow  plunk. 

The  German  people  are  not  having  a  pleasant  time 
of  it,  but  their  condition  is  improving  every  minute. 
They  are  eager  to  work,  and  as  soon  as  they  can 
get  raw  material  in  sufficient  quantity  they  will  be 
working  day  and  night.  And  if  they  can  get  credits 
from  America  the  value  of  the  mark  will  rise,  so 
that  food  can  be  bought  more  cheaply  by  the 
government  and  consequently  sold  more  cheaply 
to  the  people.  Thus  wages  would  be  stabilized  and 
much  of  the  unrest  would  disappear. 

In  the  meantime  there  are  a  number  of  things  that 
Germany  could  do  if  she  cared  to.  She  could  stand 
a  few  Schiebers  up  against  the  wall  and  shoot  them; 
she  could  see  that  waste  and  cheating  are  stopped 
so  long  as  she  finds  it  necessary  to  talk  about  starv- 
ing children;  and  she  could  begin  to  impress  on 
everyone  in  the  nation  the  mossy,  but  still  valuable, 
precept  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy. 

THE   END 


R73 


THE  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

Santa  Barbara 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW. 


Series  9482 


LA' 


a^ 


UC  SOUTHf  RN  Rt-GIONAI  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


I    III  II     III     111   III   INI   II  I  I 


AA      000  329  451    9 


T!!>, 


